formed with considerable success Handel's Messiah in various parts of the state.

If choral groups had gained an ascendance over brass bands, the brass bands themselves were gradually replaced by orchestras. For the conductors this change was not particularly difficult, but for the players it was often impossible, and the younger generation, which had enjoyed music training in their schools, had to take the initiative.

One of the significant personalities in the music world of Duluth was the composer Frank Lindroos. He was born in Viipuri, Finland, where he received his first musical training. Moving to St. Petersburg, he played the flute in the Imperial Army Band until he left for America in 1905, served as band and orchestra conductor in various places, and finally settled down in Duluth. At first he made arrangements of several Finnish songs for orchestra and chorus, but then he began to compose on his own - mostly songs, but including even an operetta Lindroos died in 1923.

As in so many other activities, Finnish-American musical groups joined together into special organizations, the first of which was the Finnish-American Music Association, founded in Ishpeming, Michigan, in 1911. Its aims were "to unite all Finnish singers and players, regardless of political beliefs, to make known Finnish music, to follow the development of the art of composition in the former homeland and to arrange for lectures, concerts and music festivals." Membership was open to all musical groups with at least four persons, as well as to individual music-lovers. The first board of directors included August Allen, William Brandes, Antti Haapaoja, John Koskela, Vilho Siukonen and George Wahlström. Under its aegis, the first significant music festival was arranged in Duluth in the summer of 1912, with seven choruses and two bands participating. The Governor of Minnesota, A. H. Eberhart, spoke at the festival, which attracted an audience of some 2,000 persons.

In 1917 the new officers of the Association were Emil Björkman, Ivar Frasa, K. Karjalainen, F. W. Kilkka, Victor Koski, V. Kukkonen, Aatu Lundquist, Sanfrid Mustonen and Carl Tolonen. Of these men, Björkman directed choruses in Ely and Virginia, and Mustonen appeared in Duluth as the director of a 30-man chorus he had assembled from all over the United States, and which was making an extensive concert tour whose final destination was Finland. In the spring of 1913 this chorus gave a concert in Duluth and then continued east, but it got no farther than

298