John teGroen; Musician, Concert Organizer

John Hendrik teGroen, a drummer, bandleader and musicians union executive who organized concerts for servicemen during World War II and helped rescue the financially foundering Hollywood Bowl, has died. He was 94.

TeGroen died Friday in Los Angeles, said his daughter, Claire teGroen.

Already an established percussionist at the outset of World War II, TeGroen helped found and served as president of the Hollywood Canteen, entertaining servicemen traveling through Los Angeles to the Pacific theater. His legacy has endured in the Hollywood Canteen Foundation, which raises money for charitable organizations.

As the war wound down, another problem presented itself: entertaining wounded veterans. TeGroen, along with J.K. “Spike” Wallace and the American Federation of Musicians (now Professional Musicians) Local 47, organized Music for the Wounded concerts at the Hollywood Bowl.

TeGroen enlisted conductor Leopold Stokowski, who was impressed by a letter he had received from a wounded soldier saying that classical music saved him from insanity and eased his pain during hospitalization. Stokowski conducted the concerts, and various members of the vast Los Angeles musicians union contributed their services.

Money raised by the Hollywood Bowl concerts paid for performances at all area hospitals. National officials, including War Department Chief of Staff and future President Dwight D. Eisenhower, commended TeGroen and the musicians’ efforts. “Music is of great recreational value to the sick and wounded in our hospitals,” Eisenhower wrote to TeGroen in 1947. “I express my sincere gratitude for the generous contribution made by the artists.”

In 1951, when financial problems threatened to close the historic bowl, TeGroen talked with a high school classmate, Dorothy Buffum Chandler, the wife of former Times Publisher Norman Chandler. Together they led a fund-raising effort among leaders of private industry and government and the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra to save the bowl.

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, TeGroen moved to the United States with his family in 1907, first settling in High Point, N.C., then moving to Annapolis, Md., and soon to Long Beach, where he grew up.

Still in high school, he was directing the orchestra aboard the ill-fated cruise ship City of Honolulu when it caught fire on Oct. 12, 1921, while sailing from Honolulu to Long Beach. Under his baton, the band continued playing until passengers were safely aboard lifeboats, and then the musicians boarded one themselves. Everyone on the ship was rescued, although TeGroen and his band lost their instruments.

TeGroen played the drums, timpani, xylophone and vibraharp, and directed bands performing throughout Southern California during the 1920s and 1930s. He also found work in studio orchestras, playing background music for several Shirley Temple films.

In 1940, TeGroen joined the musicians union as vice president while Wallace was president. A decade later TeGroen took over the presidency, an office he held until 1956.

After leaving the union, TeGroen became executive secretary of the Los Angeles County Music Commission. He organized concerts in Southern California parks and, after the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was built, initiated Christmas Eve concerts there.

In addition to his daughter Claire, of Honolulu, TeGroen is survived by his wife of eight years, Mona; two brothers, Leonard of Long Beach and Emil of Palo Alto; and five nieces and two nephews.