Arion Band Arion Band The Arion Band is one of the oldest community bands in the United States, based in Frostburg, Maryland, stablished in 1877. Its current director is Dr. Ronald Horner, professor of percussion at Frostburg State University, and its current president is Blair Knouse. The band rehearses at the historic Arion Band Hall (built in 1895) on Uhl Street in Frostburg and typically gives 5-10 performances in the Frostburg and Cumberland area during the summer. The band's namesake, the legendary Corinthian musician Arion, was the "Jolly Mon" of ancient Greece; he was rescued by dolphins after pirates threw him overboard.
Arion as Solon indicated in his poem entitled "Elegies"". According to Herodotus' account of the Lydian empire under the Mermnads, Arion attended a musical competition in Sicily, which he won. On his return trip from Tarentum, avaricious sailors plotted to kill Arion and steal the rich prizes he carried home. Arion was given the choice of suicide with a proper burial on land, or being thrown in the sea to perish. Neither prospect appealed to Arion: as Robin Lane Fox observes, "No Greek would swim out into the deep from a boat for pleasure." He asked for permission to sing a