During the nineteenth century America produced no less than some hundred native born composers, conductors, performers and pedagogues who are worthy of unstinted praise and enduring recognition. It is, however, an extremely difficult matter to single out those who may be looked upon as America's representative writers for the orchestra. At the present moment one might suggest the names of six men who have been exceptionally fortunate in being granted the opportunity of showing the world what they can do. These fortunate ones are Paine, Buck, Foote, Chadwick, MacDowell, Parker, of whom no less than four are claimed by New England. The word "fortunate" is used advisedly, for without detracting in the least from the hard-earned and well-merited laurels of these conspicuously successful composers, many another American could be pointed to who even now is worthy of being classed in the first rank and who would undoubtedly rise to epoch-making greatness were the _opportunity_ but granted him. Selecting a few names merely at random, the present writer has had occasion to peruse the orchestral pages of such men as Father Bonvin (a Jesuit priest of Canesius College, Buffalo, N.Y.) and Professor Leo R. Lewis of Tufts College,--the breadth and power of whose scoring would command wide-spread admiration were the authors natives and residents of Continental Europe. Further proof of native independence and strength is revealed in the deplorably rare opportunities of listening to the orchestral works of our younger aspirants such as F. Converse, H.H. Huss, H.K. Hadley, Rubin Goldmark, not to mention the scholarly productions of the older and reputed leaders of the country such as Gilchrist, F.G. Gleason, Foerster, Beck, E.S. Kelley, Schoenefeld, Zeck.