In 1945, at age eleven, Pete Kiefer heard the music of Fred Waring. Nine short years later, he joined Waring’s singers as a summer workshop staff assistant. From 1945 to 1949, Pete traveled with his music-loving parents from Philadelphia to Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania to hear Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians perform their daily radio broadcasts in person at Worthington Hall. Mesmerized by Waring’s ways, Pete Kiefer would ultimately mature to spend much of his life as a percussionist, protégé, producer, professional, and capable promoter, serving the man who taught America how to sing — Frederick Malcolm Waring (1900–1984).
Pete the Percussionist and Protégé
As a young boy coming of age during World War II, Pete Kiefer studied piano, sang with his high school choir, mixed chorus, and madrigal ensemble; hated music class, but enjoyed serving as a drummer in his high school band under the direction of Numa Snyder. Pete recounted one of his early amazing encounters with maestro Waring in the summer of 1954. At age twenty, as Pete attempted to hang a movie screen in the music hall of Waring’s Castle Inn Facility for performing at Delaware Water Gap, in walked Fred Waring, who casually informed Pete that his movie screen hung about two inches off center.
“That random remark acquainted me with two qualities of Fred Waring: his amazing eyesight, and his preoccupation with perfection. As the summer of 1954 unfolded I noticed, with astonishment and profound admiration, that director Fred Waring missed nothing about the musical performances — not the writing, the speaking, nor the attire. He could pace off distances and be accurate to within an inch.”
Fred Waring had been staging his summer music workshops for music educators at Delaware Water Gap since 1945. In 1954, 1955, and 1956, during the summer Waring music workshops, Waring protégé Pete thrived in his position as staff assistant. He helped staff members in the setting up and maintenance of recording and sound equipment, aided with lectures and demonstrations, and acted as staff percussionist.
Pete the Producer
As the summer of 1955 faded into fall, Pete helped to organize and to produce a two-week musical engagement in Atlantic City. This engagement featured Waring’s new show, “Hear! Hear!” destined later for a six-week stint on New York City’s Broadway. From the summer of 1955, Pete remembered at least two astonishing experiences with Waring’s Pennsylvanians. First, he met Waring’s phenomenal African-American baritone soloist Frank Davis, who became his lifelong friend. Second, he was present at that breathtaking rehearsal when conductor Waring announced to his performers that at the next rehearsal all music stands would be removed, and no music would be permitted during the live performances. The next day, Pete Kiefer witnessed panic-stricken musicians desperately managing to memorize a two-hour show.
Pete’s ultimate production challenge with Fred Waring lay just one year into the future in the winter of 1957 — performing at the inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Fred Waring and Eisenhower had long been close friends. Consequently, Pete expected that the Pennsylvanians would perform at virtually every event of inauguration weekend in January 1957. They performed at two Friday evening gala concerts in the nation’s capital. On Sunday, Fred Waring and company performed the inauguration concert at Constitution Hall.
“It was a very tight schedule. When we finished the first show, Waring’s Pennsylvanians had to pack up all of their performing equipment and race from one corner of Washington D.C. across town to yet another performing site. Quite often, we only had about fifteen minutes to spirit ourselves from one spot in the capital city to the next. And of course, when the Pennsylvanians arrived at a new site, they often encountered unexpected celebrities such as longtime band leader Guy Lombardo or another close friend of Mr. Waring — then Vice President Richard Nixon.”
After Eisenhower’s January inauguration, producer Pete Kiefer’s career took an unexpected nose-dive when he returned home from Washington to find a letter informing him that he had been drafted into the United States Army. The strategy had been that Pete Kiefer and Fred Waring Jr. would serve their military obligations in the United States Navy School of Music. But Fred Jr. did finally train in the Navy School of Music, while Pete got drafted into the Army and received electronics training at Fort Monmouth, N.J.
Pete the Professional
As an amateur drummer turned sound engineer for Waring Choral Enterprises, Pete understood that whether a person performed as a vocalist, an accompanist, or a production artist, they needed to do their best. Usually, the sound system consisted of three microphones on stands, as well as Altec box speakers with fifteen-inch woofers, and two Altec speaker mixers. On the road with the Pennsylvanians, Pete carried a recording of the group with him that would allow him to field-test the sound system just prior to a performance.
One sad evening the stage hands at a performing theatre for the Pennsylvanians insisted that they would perform the engineering task of sound-mixing instead of Kiefer. They would only allow Pete to set up backstage. Confident about his knowledge of sound equipment, Pete set up backstage and made the necessary compromises to guarantee a perfect performance. When Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians arrived on the concert scene, Waring became furious and yelled at Pete — “Kiefer, what the hell are you doing back here setting up?!” Angry and weary, Pete defended his engineering decision, by boldly yelling back at Mr. Waring — “The theatre producers forced me backstage. I set up back here and I am confident that I will be able to do a good job as the engineering technician from back here!” Apparently, Mr. Waring proved so astonished at Kiefer’s bold verbal comeback toward his criticism that he did nothing more than utter a meek “OK.” From then on, Kiefer’s relationship with Waring was excellent.
Another behavior of maestro Waring that inspired Pete included Waring’s astounding ability to bring out the exact sounds of words as he heard them for every audience. “Completing his career at Tyrone High School in the closing days of World War I in 1917, teenager Fred Waring apparently learned a priceless lesson from his high school choral director as summarized in this command: Allow the audience to hear all of the beauty, of all the sounds, of all the words, of all the music.”
Pete the Promoter
In 1971, Fred Waring invited Pete to become managing promoter and director of the Fred Waring music workshops designed for music educators and younger singers all across the nation. As the newly appointed promoter, Pete immediately embarked on an ambitious rebuilding program. He engaged an innovative artist from Easton, Pa. to design brochures for mailing to public school music teachers all across the nation. He interviewed long-time singers from the Pennsylvanians and embraced many of their ideas for providing new life to Waring’s suffering workshops.
Pete coordinated his efforts with two universities near Delaware Water Gap whose campuses provided the teaching and living facilities so vital for the Waring workshops — East Stroudsburg and California State Universities. In the years to come, Pete would coordinate his work with Pennsylvania State University. During a typical concert season, the Pennsylvanians could travel to as many as 150 cities.
“Fred Waring stressed the proper programming of concerts and performances. You have to emotionally bring the audience along. The opener should be an up-tempo, exciting, ‘knock-your-socks-off’ song that gets their attention. Then a director can bring them along with a variety of songs, with a rise and fall of emotion, leading into the end with a BIG final number. And always, leave the audience wanting more!”
In 1980, after working for Fred Waring for twenty-six years, Pete witnessed a wonderful dream become a rock solid reality — Waring’s summer workshops were transferred from East Stroudsburg to the heart of the Keystone State at Pennsylvania State University, where maestro Waring would work four additional summers, before his passing in 1984.
Although Syracuse, UCLA, and Ohio State Universities wanted Waring’s artifacts, ultimately he directed that the memorabilia from seventy years of performances come home to Pennsylvania State University. From 1985 until 2006, Pete had the enviable opportunity to serve as curator of this collection of Waring treasures, located now on the third floor of Pennsylvania State University’s Pattee Library. The Waring Room contains a Waring musical library of 6,500 choral and instrumental musical arrangements, a large collection of published sheet music, 25,000 recordings of Waring in both radio and television, 74 scrapbooks with 8,000 pages of news clippings from 1914 through 1984, as well as over 50,000 photographs, and even 650 pieces of original cartoon work.
And so in 2006, as he retired, Peter concluded the final chapter in his storied career as a percussionist, protégé, producer, professional, and promoter for that highly esteemed choral conductor, born on June 9, 1900, in Tyrone, and christened Frederick Malcolm Waring.
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