Celebrate 'Simple Gifts' with Wheaton Municipal Band at season finale concert Aug. 4
The Wheaton Municipal Band presents its final concert of the 2022 summer season on Thursday, Aug. 4
Music director Bruce Moss programed a reflective farewell entitled "Simple Gifts." The concert features Aaron Copeland's "Variations on a Shaker Melody."
This beautifully crafted variation is part of the ever popular "Appalachian Spring Ballet" by Copeland.
There are five variations on the Shaker theme which represent the bride and her farmer husband doing their daily chores.
Also, on the program in "Choral and Shaker Dance" by John Zdechlik. This work also uses the same Shaker melody as Copeland, but in a very different style.
Zdechlik's work, a standard in the concert band literature, spices up the simple hymn with meter changes, a lively tempo and a canon between alto sax and flute. Both express the idea of "simple gifts" in a very different way.
The program also features Garth Anderson on trumpet.
Anderson serves as the Wheaton Municipal Band's personnel director and coordinator for the intermission's small ensembles.
Anderson solos on "The Debutante" by Herbert L. Clark.
"I selected this piece because it is fun and captivating with engaging melodies that will keep the audience happy," Anderson said.
The composer, Herbert L. Clark, played solo cornet in the Sousa band. He composed and soloed with the band while it toured.
Anderson celebrates his 14th season with the Wheaton Municipal Band.
Of course, the program includes marches, Sousa, and John Williams.
The finale concert concludes with the first season using the full band (88 members) on the stage at the new band shell in Memorial Park.
Because of the COVID pandemic, the band did not perform in the new band shell in 2020 and had a reduced sized band last year in 2021 The superb acoustics and exceptional band have drawn record crowds throughout the summer.
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Memorial Park, 225 Karlskoga Ave. in downtown Wheaton.
Come early and bring a picnic. For more information, go to the band's website at www.wheatonmunicipalband.org.