Grand finale: After 25 years, Buffalo Grove Symphonic Band director taking last bow
The Buffalo Grove Symphonic Band will be presenting a concert 25 years in the making.
The group is turning the page on its first quarter century and beginning a new chapter.
That’s because the band’s 25th anniversary concert at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 9 at Stevenson High School's Performing Arts Center in Lincolnshire will be the last performance with its only musical director, Howard Green, at the helm.
Green launched the ensemble in fall 2001 with little or no money and borrowed music, after the village's Arts Commission Chair, Linda Rosen, asked whether he would be willing to conduct the band. The first rehearsal drew 40 people to Meridian Middle School. Today the group numbers about 70 musicians and boasts a library of between 700 and 800 pieces.
“We've built a musical family here,” Green said.
This is true in more ways than one. His wife of 50 years, Shari, is a founding member who plays timpani.
“Literally, half our married life has been invested in the band,” he noted.
The program, “The Best of 25 Years!” reflects Green's personal musical biography and will include selection like Mussorgsky's “Night on Bald Mountain,” Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet,” the “Mambo” from Leonard Bernstein's “West Side Story,” Samuel Barber's “Adagio for Strings,” “Music for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion” by PDQ Bach and selections from “Fiddler on the Roof” and “The Producers.”
“I wanted to make my last concert a going away celebration of the music that was the most favorite of what I’ve conducted in the past,” he said.
Associate conductor Allison Rakickas, a percussionist who has been with the band since its founding, said she was teaching at Meridian Middle School when her principal said “some guy wants to start a band.”
She met her husband and father of her two children, Erin, a French horn player, through the band.
“He had moved from Colorado and didn’t know a lot of people,” she said.
“It’s a celebration of what we’ve done to this point,” she said. “Howard has put his blood, sweat and tears into this organization. It’s really a labor of love for him. He not only started but has kept it going all these years.”
The group draws musicians from across the region with no audition required — one founding percussionist has driven from Homer Glen.
Keyboardist Keith Miller, a friend of Green's since high school, joined a year after the band formed.
“It’s really a celebration of the people, the music and the connections we built over the years,” Miller said.
A search committee is reviewing candidates to replace Green, with interviews planned for the summer. The band will also perform its annual Fourth of July concert at Willow Stream Park in Buffalo Grove, where Green is expected to lead a number or two.
Tickets for the May 9 show are $12 at the door, $10 in advance, and $8 for students and seniors. Advance tickets are available directly through band members, at village hall, or online at vbg.org/bgsbtickets.
“This band means so much to the people who are part of it,” band President C.J. Schmidt said. “We hope the community will join us for a joyful evening of music and memories.”