Is it a fractured version of the Broadway hit ”The Music Man” or a scene from the Foreign Legion film ”March or Die”?
On the first sweltering day of this year`s music camp at Burbank`s St. Laurence High School, it`s hard for an outsider to tell the difference. But the band members practicing in the school`s parking lot know their options are simple: Get with the program or ”ya got trouble.”
According to Patrick J. Henning, 44, band director at St. Laurence and Chicago`s Brother Rice High School, the challenge is part of the drill.
”We make them go straight to the wall to develop the full extent of their musical talent, and we don`t accept anything less than everything they have to give,” he said. ”Not coddling them is another part of it. Never accept excuses, never let them slide by with less than their best effort.”
His father and music department chairman at Brother Rice and St. Laurence, Leo J. Henning, 70, agreed.
”We don`t push them overboard, but we expect a lot from them-to develop to the brink, to whatever limits they have,” he said. ”At the end of their careers with us, they come back time after time to tell us this was the best course they had in high school because they were taught to handle things on their own.”
The results of their philosophy, which they said emphasizes hard work and persistence, are on display in the schools` trophy cases. In the 23 years the Hennings have guided the music program at Brother Rice, the students have brought home about 100 awards, most notably for their concert band
performances, according to Patrick.
In the 17 years of the Henning program at St. Laurence, the total is between 250 and 300 awards, particularly for the work of the marching band, he said.
”We don`t really care about the awards, but the kids love them,” said Patrick, who added that the difference between the two schools is rooted in their initial success.
Even in the first year of the Henning program at Brother Rice, the students won prizes for their concert performances. At St. Laurence, the track record of its first concert bands was far from shabby, but their heart was in their feet.
”Ah, yes,” said Patrick. ”St. Laurence loves its marching band.”
And it was in this format that the St. Laurence students, even in their first year, began bringing home top prizes.
Earning those prizes actually was a joint effort by the boys at St. Laurence and their musical contemporaries at the all-girls Queen of Peace High School in Burbank. The same is true at Brother Rice, where the bands include musicians from all-girls Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Chicago.
”I wouldn`t have it any other way,” said Leo.
”It`s much less interesting with just the boys,” added Patrick.
”Oh, Lord, yes,” Leo emphatically agreed.
Kitty Moran, a Mother McAuley senior, returned the favor, saying her musical career would be much less interesting without the Hennings. She has studied the trumpet with them for nine years.
”I feel I got an excellent foundation in music by studying with
(Patrick), and (Leo) is so good at making us visualize the music. They both make you feel the music, so you can play all the emotion as well as the notes,” she said.
Looking forward to her freshman year of college, she is considering a major in music education or business, possibly at Northwestern University in Evanston or the University of Notre Dame, South Bend.
The same choice she faces was easy for the Hennings, they said. Both knew they wanted a professional life in music. That life began in 1942, when Leo began work at Mt. Carmel High School in Chicago, and soon after at St. Mel`s High School, now closed.
In 1944, Leo`s work with high school musicians was interrupted by World War II, during which he played the saxophone in Wayne King`s Army Band and later taught music to the dregs of the military.
”I taught murderers, rapists, deserters and black marketeers at the disciplinary barracks in Leavenworth, Kan., and later in Milwaukee, where the army took over the county jail for military prisoners serving from five years to life,” he recalled.
After 15 months of teaching hardened criminals, Leo was discharged in 1946 and happily made the switch to high school students, he said.
The following year began a 20-year stint with the Lou Breese Orchestra, a popular Chicago band that played at society parties, conventions, industrial shows and the finest hotel ballrooms in town. Leo played saxophone, clarinet and flute and served as assistant conductor for the orchestra.
He later took charge of the orchestra and its entertainment-booking service following the on-stage death of Breese in the grand ballroom of the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago. It was 1969, and the band was performing for the Chicago Jewelers Association.
”He died in my arms,” Leo remembered. ”He collapsed, and we told the audience that he was recovering off-stage. But the truth was he died of a heart attack as he fell to the stage. He was a fine musician, a really fine man.”
While Leo was conducting the Lou Breese Orchestra, he continued teaching and conducting in local high schools while expanding his business among the parochial grade schools. Although he said he can play and teach all band instruments, his specialty is the woodwinds.
”All this time, I was performing, playing, traveling and teaching,” Leo said. ”I had to work really hard at all those things to support six kids and my wife, Rosemary, and myself. I was home very little.”
When Leo assumed full responsibility for the orchestra, Patrick, who was in his third year of a music scholarship at Quincy College, transferred to Chicago`s DePaul University so that he could commute to classes while beginning his career.
”I am the third of six kids, and we all play musical instruments,” said Patrick. ”But I am the only one who went into teaching and conducting. There was never any doubt in my mind what I wanted to do, but (Dad) was surprised because I`d always loved sports and he thought I was going to be a physical education teacher or something like that.”
Today, Patrick`s musical career helps support a family of five. He met his wife, Susan, a piano player and mathematics teacher at St. Laurence, while in the band at Quincy College. He said she is the one who guided the musical development of their three children, all of whom play the piano and at least one other instrument.
Their daughter, Meredith, a Mother McAuley graduate, is a sophomore who plays French horn in the orchestra and wind ensemble at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. Their elder son, Patrick Jr., is a St. Laurence junior who plays the saxophone and baritone horn. Tim, their youngest, plays the tuba in the band at Incarnation School, Palos Heights.
The older Patrick, whose specialty is the lower brass-though, like his father, he said he can play and teach all instruments-took over from his father the music instruction at the parochial grade schools in 1968 and eventually brought the total to seven programs. Because he and his father work for the schools on contract, the salary for each program is based on the number of students who participate.
Each year, the grade school students perform at least twice, in a band concert held at St. Laurence and in a solo and ensemble concert at Brother Rice.
”I have a large number of (grade school) students in my programs, so that works out great,” said Patrick. ”I get to teach and I get to make a decent living too.”
Including the Hennings` salaries, the schools contribute about 40 percent of the total operating budget for the music departments, according to Patrick. Transporation, uniforms, overnight accommodations and many other expenses are paid for by the fundraising efforts of the schools` band boosters.
The Hennings now teach 425 grade school students and 240 high school students. About 50 of Patrick`s younger students attend Incarnation School in Palos Heights, where the principal is Felician Sr. Mary Adria. She also worked with Patrick when she was principal at St. Linus School in Oak Lawn.
”I`ve known Patrick Henning for at least 15 years,” she said. ”His enthusiasm communicates itself to our students, and he is a fantastic instructor. I am always amazed at the remarkable progress of the students in his beginners` program.”
If today`s students are lucky, they will leave the Henning program with the kind of memories that still make one former student laugh out loud.
Edward J. Laude of Chicago said he first met Leo when he was in the 4th grade at Visitation Grammar School, Chicago. He later played under the elder Henning`s direction at Leo High School in Chicago, from which he graduated in 1958.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Laude`s daughter Maribeth (through the St. Laurence program), his son Edward (Brother Rice) and his son Kevin (Leo High School) all developed their musical skills in the Henning program.
”Think of it, I was in three different parents` clubs at three different schools,” he said. ”But how could I complain? It was for the band.”
Laude, a law librarian for the Cook County Department of Corrections, made his living for many years playing the clarinet, the bass clarinet and the saxophone. More recently, he learned to play the bagpipes, on which he performs as a member of the Stockyard Kilty Band.
He said his favorite memory of the Hennings concerns a distant St. Patrick`s Day when Leo had a high school band and four grade school bands marching in the same South Side parade. Detailing some of his more senior students to lead the four grade school bands in the parade, Leo stayed at the head of his high school band. Coincidentally, Patrick Henning played in the band Laude was asked to lead.
”Patrick was just a little kid and he was playing the sousaphone, which is huge, you know, and there was a stiff wind kicking up, Laude said. ”So when we rounded a corner, there goes Patrick-he was just 8 or 9-and he`s staggering under the weight of this thing with a ferocious wind pushing him away from us, down the street. Of course, Patrick denies it ever happened.”
Today, Laude, like several former Henning students, plays in the 50-piece Southwest Community Concert Band, for which Leo is the director and conductor. ”I would love to see more of Leo`s former students in this band,” said Laude, who also plays in a sax quartet of musicians from the community concert band. ”We`ve already got four or five band directors from the local school districts, and I think that`s good because it helps everyone keep up his skills. But we should have more people who played with Leo in their high school days. That would be great.”
In addition to the sax quartet, the band also has spawned an 8-to-16-piece brass ensemble that plays for small groups in the area. Leo said he plans within the next year to form a Dixieland band and a polka band, each made up of seven to eight musicians from the concert band.
Leo became interested in the 50-piece concert band through his daughter-in-law, Lois, who plays the French horn and is secretary-treasurer for the band`s board of directors. She is married to Leo`s youngest son, Mark, who is a partner in Winston & Strawn, a Chicago law firm.
Leo`s wife, Rosemary, is the community concert band`s bass drummer, and Patrick also became involved last spring, filling in as conductor while Leo was in the hospital for his second quadruple bypass operation.
According to Ray Forlenza, band teacher for the five grade schools in Tinley Park`s District 140, the Hennings` charisma makes them impressive. Forlenza is a 1981 graduate of St. Laurence, where he took private saxophone lessons from Leo. He also is a member of the Southwest Community Concert Band. ”Leo definitely influenced my choice of career,” said Forlenza. ”He taught me about patience, endurance and finesse. And I remember that he used to tell us never to accept mediocrity. He said perfection was the thing to shoot for.”
The Southwest Community Concert Band includes members aged 17 to 85, and it is open to all musicians, regardless of where they live, Leo said. The band usually performs six to eight concerts a year in the communities where their principal fundraising agencies are located.
According to Forlenza, the Hennings are exceptional not only for their quality but also for the quantity of their work.
”The thing is, they direct two excellent high school band programs,” he said. ”Just one is a lot of work, but they run two of the top programs in the state.”
In the annual State of the Art Catholic School Concert Competition, which is held at Marian Catholic High School, Chicago Heights, no band is allowed to succeed itself as champion. Patrick said that since the rule was enacted, Brother Rice has been declared champion every year it was eligible to compete. And St. Laurence, he added, almost always finishes second.
Drum major Marty Kalas, a senior at St. Laurence, said he believes the Henning program is second to none.
”I sometimes wonder what it`s like in other high school bands, and I can`t imagine that it`s as good an experience as we have at St. Laurence,”
Kalas said. He added that when he and his saxophone first joined the St. Laurence band, he was intimidated by the older student-musicians, and he didn`t really believe that he could improve to their level.
”Now I feel that I`m as good as the people I admired as a freshman, and that is due to the Hennings, absolutely,” said Kalas.
Competing almost exclusively against better-funded suburban public schools in the annual Midwest Concert Competition, St. Laurence and Brother Rice have alternated as winners since the contest was initiated six years ago. And in the eight years that St. Laurence has competed against approximately 40 other bands in the Illinois State Marching Band Competition at Illinois State University, it has ranked seven times among the 10 finalists.
”These kids really have to push themselves to the limit to win these awards,” said Patrick. ”They don`t come from super musical backgrounds. A lot of their success is attributable to their home lives and the good work ethics they get from their families.”
”And do they drop out,” said Leo. ”Very rarely, even though the time they must give to the programs is staggering. I sometimes wonder if I were their parents if I would commit myself to this kind of program, because it requires a commitment from the parents as well as the kids.”
Patrick said that the students are required to attend an hour practice five days a week and two after-school sessions of two or three hours apiece. During the fall, they also practice every Saturday and sometimes on Sunday, in addition to any private lessons they may take.
”I tell them that if they push themselves and they don`t wind up as grand champion or number two or number three, their accomplishments still stand on their own as a source of pride,” Patrick said. ”But the truth is that if they push themselves and follow our program, they won`t end up that way. They will get the accolades.”
Although praise itself continues to pour into the program, money does not. The Hennings report that drastic funding cuts, similar to those crippling or eliminating so many high school music programs, have been imposed during the last five years.
Part of the money needed for uniforms and equipment comes from the fees of $200 to $250 paid by the band members. What the schools and the student fees don`t provide is targeted by the fund-raising efforts of the band boosters. By sponsoring raffles and selling space in ad books, the boosters, the students and their teachers raise money for equipment and trips for the band students.
They take what the Hennings call ”little trips” to Florida or Arizona and ”long trips” to Hawaii or Ireland. Every student will travel twice, on one little and one long trip, during his or her four years at the high schools, which are operated by the Irish Christian Brothers.
But even when the bands travel, it`s not just for fun. During the trip to Ireland planned for next spring, the St. Laurence students will participate in two competitions and numerous performances.
And meanwhile, this school year will take them to football games and marching band competitions this fall, to basketball games, musical plays at the girls` schools and two concert competitions this winter, to a formal concert and various parades, time permitting, next spring.
It`s a safe bet that these activities will continue to add to the reputations of both Hennings.
”We have taught our kids that just playing the easier stuff, the stuff that would get by but wouldn`t advance their experience with music, isn`t enough,” said Patrick.
Leo said it might be impossible after all these years to alter either their methods or their reputations.
”We`re already teaching the children of my earlier students, and soon we will be teaching the children of the students Patrick has taught,” he said.
If Edward Laude and his children are typical of the students who will preserve memories of the Hennings and their music, future generations are sure to think fondly of Leo and Patrick.
”It has always been a very fulfilling relationship for me,” said Laude. ”My life has been immeasurably improved from knowing Leo and more recently, from knowing Patrick.”
For his part, Patrick said he intends to continue his work and his father`s work to the best of his ability.
”I appreciate what my dad did 30 years ago with his music program, and I have changed with the times a bit, but my perception is that the old system still works the best,” he said.
