Strike up the band to celebrate another Little Darwin unusual find : the John Philip Sousa march folio containing pieces copyrighted 1893 to 1904 . The famous band conductor and composer visited Australia on a worldwide band tour .
Sousa was one of five musicians asked to decide on the standard version of the American national anthem , The Star-Spangled Banner , and served as White House bandmaster to five presidents. In 1910 he took his band of 100 musicians on a world tour, the Washington Post upon his death reporting it took in Europe, Africa, Australia , an apparent separate country called Tasmania , New Zealand , Honolulu and the Fiji Islands .
The well worn , foxed and reinforced folio, unearthed in Townsville , North Queensland , includes a number of Sousa's favourite compositions ; he churned out more than 300 in his lifetime, about a third marches . In addition, he wrote novels, verse , magazine articles , 10 operas and The Last Crusade for orchestra, choir and organ .
The Washington Post March in the folio was adopted by dance studios to teach the two-step .
There is a name at the top left of El Capitan March . Sousa , a mason , keen on horseriding , boxing and trap- shooting , died from a heart attack in March 1932 , aged 77 , in the Abraham Lincoln Hotel , Reading , following a large civic dinner the night before , intending to lead the Ringgold Band on its 80th anniversary the following day . He had expressed the desire to live to 100 so he could write more marches .
