Music competitions have an ancient history dating back some two thousand years. In the United States, early music contests mimicked the German Saengerfests and Welsh Eistoddfods; however, some of the earliest continuously running music competitions held in America are the state contests for secondary school students. This article identifies for the first time Kansas and Oklahoma as holding the two earliest state school music competitions and corrects some long-standing erroneous information. It studies these two state events through historical analysis of primary sources and triangulates the data with secondary sources. Frank Beach at Kansas State Normal School in Emporia and Fredrik Holmberg at the University of Oklahoma were found to be the two initiators. These two state music contests were influenced by several things including the state track and field meets, previous music contests, the western pioneering spirit, European music systems, and the music specialties of the founders. In the end both contests were seen as promoting the cause of public school music by increasing both the quality and numbers of music education programs and as leading to the exponential growth of state music competitions throughout the United States.

中文翻译：

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堪萨斯州和俄克拉荷马州的全州公立学校音乐比赛/音乐节：美国学校音乐比赛运动的开始

音乐比赛有着悠久的历史，可以追溯到大约两千多年前。在美国，早期的音乐比赛模仿了德国的 Saengerfests 和威尔士的 Eistoddfods；然而，美国最早连续举办的一些音乐比赛是针对中学生的州级比赛。本文首次确定堪萨斯州和俄克拉荷马州举办了两个最早的州立学校音乐比赛，并纠正了一些长期存在的错误信息。它通过对主要来源的历史分析来研究这两种状态事件，并使用次要来源对数据进行三角测量。恩波利亚堪萨斯州立师范学校的 Frank Beach 和俄克拉荷马大学的 Fredrik Holmberg 被发现是两位发起者。这两个国家音乐比赛受到了几个方面的影响，包括国家田径运动会、历届音乐比赛、西方开拓精神、欧洲音乐体系以及创始人的音乐专业。最终，这两场比赛都被视为通过提高音乐教育课程的质量和数量来促进公立学校音乐事业，并导致全美州音乐比赛呈指数级增长。