The Wheaton Municipal Band Goes Patriotic

For those people who love Americana music, come to the Wheaton Municipal Band concert on Thursday, July 17 at 8:00 in Memorial Park, when guest conductor Loras Schissel takes the podium. Since the traditional patriotic concert on the week of July 4th was virtually rained out the audience gets a second chance at hearing all their favorites.

Loras Schissel, the senior musicologist at the Library of Congress gives the downbeat to a program filled with audience favorites. A conductor and composer who traveled the world, Schissel also is known as the foremost Sousa scholar. Schissel is considered a leading authority on the music of Percy Aldridge Grainger, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitzky. Schissel and John Philip Sousa IV (great-grandson of the composer) recently co-authored a book titled The Stars and Stripes Forever. This renowned composer leads the band in a unique program, not to be missed. Two Schissel arrangements of Sousa marches lead the program, El Capitan and Stars and Stripes Forever. But other marches also speckle the program. In addition, the program includes Von Suppe's Das Pensionat, The Battle Cry of Freedom by George Root, America the Beautiful, God Bless America, The Armed Forces Medley and Star Spangled Spectacular.

This concert offers a rare opportunity to hear a world-class band, directed by a world-class conductor and hear unique arrangements of all time American favorites.

Don't miss the Wheaton Municipal Band concert on Thursday, July 17 at 8:00 p.m. in Memorial Park in downtown Wheaton. The concert is Free. For more information go to the web site. www.wheatonmunicipalband.org.