Kenneth R. Force

Kenneth Richard Force (March 24, 1940 – October 7, 2023) was an American composer and conductor best known for his association with the United States Merchant Marine Academy Regimental Band, where he served as its director from 1971 to 2016. The New York Times described him as "something of a Toscanini of military marching bands"

Early life Born in Queens in 1940s New York to Alvina and George Force, Kenneth Richard Force was raised by parents who filled their home with the sounds of jazz, big band, and classical music. His father, a banker, encouraged Kenneth's interest in music, including introduction to the trumpet, and exposure to Radio City Music Hall, Broadway, and the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circuses.

Force began studying trumpet in the fourth grade.

Career

Army service Force played with circus bands before joining the army. Force graduated from the Naval School of Music in 1958. and served as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus band's leader.

Force reformed the band in the British style of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, mixing European and American music. The building would later be sold, named Madison Square Garden, and rebuilt in 1925 and 1968. In 2014, the Academy's fanfare trumpets performed with the Allentown Band in Pennsylvania, the oldest civilian band in the country, for a Pearl Harbor remembrance concert. Following the effort, in 1999 the United States Merchant Marine Academy Regimental Band was bestowed with the title "George M. Cohan's Own" by Cohan's family.

Force led the band to perform in numerous presidential inauguration parades, at which the band would traditionally perform the 19th century march, "A Life on the Ocean Wave.". "The First Lady March", a march for the First Lady, written for Hillary Clinton The Great World War I Medley