Founded in 1899, the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music (WCM) is celebrating its 125th anniversary and to commemorate that milestone, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson has declared Dec. 16-20 to be Wisconsin Conservatory of Music Week in the city.
"The City of Milwaukee congratulates the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music for 125 years of inspiring and educating the community; and further wishes them many more years of success, growth, leadership, and excellence,” reads Johnson’s proclamation.
WCM is the state’s largest independent non-profit music school and while it has had numerous homes over the years, it has occupied the Charles L. McIntosh mansion at 1584 N. Prospect Ave. since 1968.
Numerous celebrities have attended WCM, from Liberace and Gene Wilder, to jazz musicians Brian Lynch, Berkeley Fudge and Manty Ellis, to rocker Angie Swan to the late No Wave legend, James Chance (aka James White).
Others who have attended include Milwaukee’s singing mayor Carl Zeidler, opera singer Julie Miller and Justin Hurwitz, who won an Oscar as the composer of the film “La La Land.”
The school was founded by William Boeppler, Dr. Louis Frank and Hugo Kaun. In 1968 it merged with Wisconsin College of Music, which was housed at the McIntosh Mansion.
The WCM achieved debt-free status in 2017 and has been working to build its endowment as part of a focus on growth and expansion as well as the sustainability of music education in the state.
“In the past five years, WCM has launched a pioneering fellowship program for emerging Black and Latine classical musicians, taken on the management of Milwaukee's Children's Choir, and become the first U.S. institution to offer the innovative Royal Conservatory of Music SmartStart Early Childhood Education program, reaching 1,210 students in its inaugural year,” according to a news release.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
