The Clearfield Area Concert Association,

             celebrating its 71^th anniversary with the 2007-2008 season. 

     Starting as a small group of local townspeople devoted to good music, they joined with Columbia Artists who were forming a network of communities across the country in what was called Community Concert Associations. In the beginning, people simply pooled their money and at the end of a campaign, a group of 3 concerts were selected depending on how much money was available.

     The idea then, as now, is that the shows being presented would be of “New York” quality. That was easy to establish in that most of the early shows and still many of the performances have come from the Big Apple itself or have roots there and performed at the places like Carnegie Hall that most people recognize. Locally we offer shows of comparable quality to the Eisenhower Artist Series, in fact their series for the 2006-2007 season offers two shows that have been in Clearfield, Diva the all women’s jazz orchestra and St. Lawrence String Quartet.

     Local towns like Clearfield were able to present great shows for less money because the whole idea became an all volunteer venture.

     Over the years the local Association has presented many of the famous TV and stage performers such as John Raitt, Tony Sandler, John Gary, George Shearing, Skitch Henderson, and William Warfield. The Big Bands also played here, some with the original namesakes such as Guy Lombardo, Bob Crosby, Woody Herman, and the Longines Symphonettes and some as the later revised franchised bands such as Tommy Dorsey, Xavier Cugat, Glenn Miller and included the singing groups of the Four Lads and the Pied Pipers. Not as well known perhaps but outstanding in their time frame were the DePaur Infantry Chorus who made a name for themselves during the Second World War, The Belafonte Folk Singers who at one time backed up Harry Belafonte, the outstanding German group of the Obernkirchen Children’s Choir, and the Young Americans.

                                                                         (researched and remembered by Richard & Ruth Kendrick)