Henry Fillmore (December 3, 1881 – December 7, 1956) was an American musician, composer, publisher, and bandleader, best known for his many marches and screamers, a few of which he wrote for the Band of the Hour at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. Early life and education Fillmore was born in Cincinnati, Ohio as the eldest of five children. In his youth. he mastered piano, guitar, violin, flute, and slide trombone. He kept his trombone activities a secret at first, as his circumspect religious father James Henry Fillmore (1849–1936)—a composer of gospel songs, often in collaboration with Jessie Brown Pounds —believed it an uncouth and sinful instrument. Henry's mother secretly bought a used trombone for him and obscured from Henry's father the son's learning to play the instrument. Fillmore, whose relative Frederick Augustus Fillmore (1856–1925) was also a tune-composer for gospel songs, was a singer for his church choir as a boy. He began composing at 18, with his first published march "Hingham", named after a line of brass instruments. Fillmore entered the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in 1901. Personal life After graduating from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Fillmore traveled the United States as a circus bandmaster with his wife, an exotic vaudeville dancer named Mabel May Jones. They were married in St. Louis. Career During the 1920s, Fillmore was back in Cincinnati conducting the Shriners Temple Band, which he turned into one of the best marching bands in the country. In 1938, Fillmore, after being advised by a physician that he had just a few months to live, retired to Miami, Florida. He went on, however, to prove the physician wrong, keeping an active schedule rehearsing high school bands in Florida and composing marches. Henry Fillmore Band Hall, the rehearsal hall for many of the University of Miami's performing groups, acquired its name as a tribute to Fillmore's work in the band genre. His march "Orange Bowl" was written for Miami's Band of the Hour. Uncle Henry, as Fillmore was affectionately known to the members of the Band of the Hour, also wrote the University of Miami's current official fight song – "Miami U How-De-Doo". His arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is performed by the Florida State University Marching Chiefs. His march "Men of Florida" was composed for the bands at the University of Florida. He was given an Honorary Doctorate of Music by the