Boca flutist plays for chief executive

By Dale M. King

CITY EDITOR

Everyone knows that President George W. Bush is the leader of the land.

But how many know he’s also been the leader of a band?

And on top of that, one of the performers in that musical group is a native of Boca Raton.

President Bush recently became the first chief executive in history to conduct “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Staff Sgt. Ellen Dooley, a Boca Raton native and professional flute player and instructor, was among the music-makers that night.  She added her own special touch to the 41-piece band’s rendition of John Philip Sousa’s march, “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

Papal Performance

The sergeant also performed with the band for the White House arrival ceremony for Pope Benedict XVI on April 16 — only the second papal White House visit in history. (President Jimmy Carter hosted Pope John Paul II in 1979 during a ceremony for which the Marine Band also performed.)

Flutist Dooley joined “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band in May 2005. 

But she recalled that her musical training began long before that – starting at the age of 10, she said.

After graduating in 1992 from the New World School of the Arts in Miami, she attended the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., where she earned a bachelor’s in music performance in 1996.

She also earned a master’s degree in music performance from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 2002. Her most notable teachers, she said, were Jeanne Baxtresser, former New York Philharmonic principal flute, and Mark Sparks, St. Louis Symphony principal flute. 

Before joining “The President’s Own,” Staff Sgt. Dooley was professor of flute at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa., flute instructor at the Levine School of Music in Washington, D.C., and performed in educational outreach programs for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the Choral Arts Society of Washington in Washington, D.C.

Professor, Instructor

She performs with the Marine Band, Marine Chamber Orchestra, and Marine Chamber Ensembles at the White House, in the Washington, D.C. area and across the country during the band’s annual concert tour.
               
While Bush was the first president to conduct the band, some presidents have sat in and performed with the ensemble. President Warren G. Harding told friends that he had played every band instrument except the trombone and the E-flat cornet and was known occasionally to join the Marine Band during its White House rehearsals.

President Bill Clinton, while still governor of Arkansas, joined the Marine Dance Band during the Governor’s Dinner in 1991.

The Marine Band is America’s oldest professional musical organization. Founded in 1798, the band has performed for every U.S. president since John Adams.

Given the title “The President’s Own” by Thomas Jefferson, the Marine Band’s primary mission is to provide music for the president of the United States and the commandant of the Marine Corps.