SUCCESS STORIES | DONALD ERB A man of noteworthy ambition

By TRACEY D'ASTOLFO
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN NATIVE Donald Erb has composed more than 110 works of music, which have been performed by more than 80 orchestras in the United States, including every major orchestra, as well as many orchestras abroad.
One work, "The Seventh Trumpet," has had more than 200 performances by more than 50 orchestras in the United States and abroad and was chosen as the U.S. representative to UNESCO in 1970.
Born at South Side Hospital in 1927, Erb credits his parents, Janet (Griffith) and Tod, who were both born and reared in Youngstown, for supporting him in his interests and for paving the way to his eventual success.
"My mother and father were wonderful," said Erb, 76, an only child. "I really was crazy about them. They always gave me what they saw I needed to have. My father saw me singing and trying to write music down on a piece of paper, and he got me music lessons."
Grants and fellowships
Erb, distinguished professor emeritus of composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, has received numerous grants and fellowships, including those from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Koussevitsky, Fromm, Aaron Copland and Ford foundations, and has been featured conductor, composer and lecturer at more than 100 universities and colleges throughout the United States.
Erb, who retired from CIM in 1996, also wrote the major article on orchestration for the Encyclopedia Britannica.
In 1998, Erb was presented with the Ohioana Career Award, the oldest and most prestigious of the awards given by the Ohioana Library Association, presented each year to a native Ohioan for his or her outstanding professional accomplishments in the arts and humanities.
Erb's accomplishments are all the more impressive because his music is considered avant-garde in a field noted for its conservative tastes.
Trumpet-playing
As a child, Erb and his parents made a trip to Oberlin, Kansas, to visit family. While there, his great aunt Sarah, a music teacher, taught him to play the trumpet and then gave him the World War I army band instrument.
When they returned home, Erb's father arranged for him to continue his trumpet lessons with a local teacher.
"I learned how to play the trumpet pretty quickly," Erb said. "I really loved music, and I really liked playing the trumpet."
Erb, who attended Sheridan Elementary School, left Youngstown at the age of 8 when his father's employer, Republic Steel, transferred him to Cleveland, although he returned to Youngstown frequently for several years to visit family.
Erb continued his trumpet training as a teen and while in college, playing jazz trumpet in local dance bands.
After Erb served in the Navy during World War II, his father persuaded him to study business administration at Kent State University.
"That lasted one quarter," Erb said.
Erb switched majors and earned a degree in trumpet and composition from Kent in 1950. In 1952 he received a master's degree in composition from Cleveland Institute of Music and then a doctorate at Indiana University in 1964. In 1953 he was appointed to the CIM faculty.
Family memories
Erb said neither of his parents had any knowledge of music. He recalls his mother's reaction when she heard he had won a Guggenheim Fellowship.
"She told my dad she hoped I would get over this stage and settle down and make something of myself," he said, laughing.
Many years later he received a call from his father, who had gone to the Lakewood Public Library and looked up information on Erb.
"He said, 'If I'd have known you were that good I would have come to more of your concerts,'" Erb said.
Although he only spent his younger years in Youngstown, Erb still has many memories of growing up in the Valley, where his father built their home on Hillman Street.
His Uncle Jim had a farm at Belmont Avenue and Gypsy Lane, and he taught Erb how to farm. He said another uncle had a tombstone shop on Belmont Avenue.
"The tombstones used to come wrapped in lead strips to keep them from breaking," Erb recalled. "I would take the lead strips and melt them down and make tin soldiers. I had hundreds of soldiers."
Steel mills
Steel mills were a part of Erb's life growing up in the Mahoning Valley in the 1930s. As a child, he would sneak to the mills and watch them pour molten steel, hiding, undetected, in the shadows. Erb remembers his father taking him downtown to see the steel company strikes.
"The steel companies had some mind-blowingly harsh strikes back then," he said. "My dad would take me down there and park his car on top of a hill ... and we'd watch these guys go down there and get their heads smashed. One striker walking by had a wooden ball bat with razor blades embedded in it. Can you imagine getting hit in the face with that?"
Although his father worked in the mills, Erb said he was never encouraged to do the same.
"I think my dad knew I was somebody else," Erb said.
Erb, who comes to Youngstown about twice a year, said the city has improved over the years.
"Youngstown looks more prosperous than it used to, much different than it did when I was a kid," Erb said. "The buildings are nicer, the houses are nicer. The university is a big push in the right direction. There are many more things than there used to be."