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Show MUSIC AND CULTURE IN UTAH. It has always been maintained, against successful contradiction, that Utah and her people possessed more development along the lines of the various refined arts than any other of the younger western states. This of course is due partially to the fact that the settlement of Utah was effected in a different manner than was the rule in most other western states. Many of the settler? and emigrants who located in other mountain states went there with the avowed purpose of achieving wealth. They were determined to wrest from the unfriendly un-friendly elements a fortune, they were willing to make sacrifice, suffer discomfort and inconvenience because their dream was that when they made their stake they would return to other fields where culture and refinement existed. Not so with the settlers of Utah. To a very great extent, the people who settled -this territory came here with the avowed intention of making it their home. It was not their dream to tarry here a few years and gather wealth and then go back to other centers of culture and refinement, they believed this was to be their permanent home and believing this they immediately endeavored to build, create and develop, in a small way, those arts that would make this to a certain extent a center of culture and refinement. Thus we early find the pioneers cultivating their musical, dramatic dra-matic and artistic tastes. The best witness of this fact i probably, seen in the very numerous splendid choirs and musical c izations that have existed and flourished here also, dramatically, . ome of the world s foremost theatrical stars received their first tuition here. Our artists not only have the best art institute of any wcp--ni state but many of them rank among the foremost in the country. Also in litcr-. litcr-. ature the product of Utah brains holds no mean place. Another step in the right direction is about to be taken. That foremost of Utah's gifted violinists, Willard Wcihe is perfecting an i. organization of musicians, a symphony orchestra, if you please, that will give regular performances at the Orpheum Theatre every Sunday night during the season. The fact that Air. Weihc and his associates . arc enthusiastically devoted to this scheme indicates that Utah will go one step higher in the scale of music development. |