Wheaton Municipal Band highlights the music of Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein, the composer, conductor, humanitarian, and one of the most popular contemporary composers, conjures up images of “West Side Story” and the New York Philharmonic.

Bruce Moss, music director of the Wheaton Municipal Band, has programmed an evening of some of Bernstein’s better-known works on Thursday, July 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Memorial Park in downtown Wheaton.

Concert bands often shy away from performing Bernstein because of the difficulty level. But the Wheaton Municipal Band, with its outstanding musicians, can handle the challenge, even though the musicians only get one rehearsal before the performance.

The program includes Bernstein’s “Slava!” Suite from “On the Waterfront,” and music from “West Side Story.” “Slava!” was written after Bernstein met cellist Mstislav “Slava” Rostropovich on a New York Philharmonic tour to Russia in 1959. The piece starts with a vaudevillian tune but quickly develops in Bernstein’s high energy rhythmic complexity.

“On the Waterfront,” was Bernstein’s only film score, written for the 1954 movie staring Marlon Brando. The music is filled with soulful, jazzy style saxophone and clarinet features, and is challenging to perform.

The evening’s concert features two Wheaton Band soloists. Whitney Boden had to wait a week to perform her flute solo, “Poem” because last week’s concert was rained out.

Bowden is in her fourth season with the Wheaton Municipal Band.

Griffes’ “Poem” is a one-movement flute concerto has the harmonic and illusive sense of Claude Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.”

The work is accompanied by a smaller segment of the band. Walter Grabner is the other soloist, performing the first movement of “Jazz Concerto” Jerry Lackey on bass clarinet. Bass clarinet is not often heard as a solo instrument, so this is a rare opportunity. Grabner performed as principal clarinetist with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. He also is a well-known clarinet mouthpiece craftsman and has had his mouthpieces used by many well-known clarinetists around the world.

Don’t miss this special concert on Thursday, July 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Memorial Park in downtown Wheaton. Come early to secure you place on the lawn or in the stadium seats. For more information, go to the band’s website at www.wheatonmunicipalband.org.