Did You Know . . . Only One Famous Composer Was Born in America’s Capital City of Washington, DC? 

By Robert Markow | From the July/August 2026 issue of Strings

That composer was, fittingly enough, John Philip Sousa. He was born in 1854 on G Street S.E., the third of ten children. Sousa’s life in the band world began at the tender age of 13, when his trombonist father enlisted him in the US Marine Band as assistant cymbal player. At 18, he became principal trombonist in the band, stayed for three years, left for five to play violin (yes, violin!) in theater pit orchestras and to study conducting, then rejoined the US Marine Band as conductor in 1880, and 12 years later left again—this time permanently—to become leader of his own band. Over the next 40 years, until his death in 1932, Sousa conducted some 15,600 concerts. These included four tours abroad, one of them a year-long round-the-world tour in 1911, stopping in the British Isles, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Canada, and all over the American Midwest.

Sousa’s legacy includes 130 marches, some of which enjoy iconic status: The Stars and Stripes Forever (since 1987 officially the American national march), Semper Fidelis (official march of the Marine Corps), The Liberty Bell, The Washington Post (his first big hit, in 1889), The Thunderer, and many more. Such was the March King’s fame and fortune that The Stars and Stripes Forever alone earned Sousa more than $300,000—some $10 million in today’s currency.

In addition to marches, Sousa also wrote operettas (El Capitan is the best known, recently revived), overtures, suites, dances, and hundreds of arrangements of European symphonic music. 

—Robert Markow