A Winter Festival

The first commercial CD published by the Concord Band, A Winter Festival, debuted in 1997. It presents winter holiday favorites under the batons of the Band’s first two Music Directors, the late William M. Toland, Music Director Laureate, and Music Director Emeritus, Dr. William G. McManus. The CD opens with Overture to a Winter Festival, commissioned as a retirement gift from the Band to Bill Toland. Its premiere in December, 1994 is presented here. Alfred Reed’s Russian Christmas Music was introduced to the Concord Band by Dr. McManus in the 1995 performance presented here, his first Holiday Pops with the Band. The piece has become one of the Band’s favorites. Also included are Leroy Anderson’s A Christmas Festival and Sleigh Ride.

Tracks

1. Overture to a Winter Festival (Curnow) 🕪
2. March of the Toys (Herbert, arr. Clark)
3. A Christmas Festival (Anderson)
4. The Christmas Suite (Walters)
5. The Holly and the Ivy (arr. Davis/Longfield)
6. Russian Christmas Music (Reed)
7. Festive Sounds of Hanukah (arr. Holcombe)
8. Holiday Favorites (arr. Lavender)
9. Rhapsody for Hanukah (arr. Bulla)
10. Sleigh Ride (Anderson)
11. White Christmas (Berlin, arr. Edmondson)
12. Auld Lang Syne (arr. Toland)

This CD can be ordered by sending your check, annotated “Winter Festival,” for $15, including postage and handling, to The Concord Band, P. O. Box 302, Concord, MA 01742.

Concord Band Premieres Commissioned Work with Lowell Flavor

Professor Daniel P Lutz
Composer

To recognize the 50th anniversary of the publication of Lowell author Jack Kerouac's On The Road as well as the 75th anniversary of the author's birth, the Concord Band has commissioned Professor Daniel P. Lutz to compose a new work for concert band. The new work, Dichotomy...Impressions of Kerouac, will be given its premiere performance at the Concord Band's 1997 Fall Concert on November 1st at 51 Walden in Concord. This commission was funded in part by a grant from the Lowell Cultural Council.

Professor Lutz, whose compositions include numerous concert band and orchestral works, pieces for jazz ensemble, theatre, corporate video, commercial radio and television, is a faculty member of the performance department of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell College of Fine Arts. For more than seventeen years, he has directed various collegiate and professional musical ensembles throughout Massachusetts and the United States. For more than ten years he has been presenting clinics on composition and music performance in this country and abroad. In 1996, the Massachusetts Music Educators Association Northeast Junior District Band premiered his composition Northeast Fanfare at Gordon College. Professor Lutz is a resident of Weymouth.

Major Steven Grimo to Conduct The Concord Band

Major Steven Grimo
Guest Conductor

The Concord Band is honored that Major Steven Grimo, Commander of the Air Education & Training Command (AETC) Band of the West will be the guest conductor at the Band's Winter Concert on March 8, 1997.

Major Grimo entered the United States Air Force in January, 1986. Upon completion of Officer Training School, he was assigned as Deputy Commander and Assistant Conductor of the 539th Air Force Band of the West, now the AETC Band of the West. His success in that assignment led to selection as Executive Officer and Vice Commander of the United States Air Force Band in Washington D.C. While in Washington, Major Grimo was Officer in Charge of the USAF Ceremonial Brass and the Airmen of Note. In that capacity, he regularly performed for the President, high ranking military and civilian leaders, and for national and international media events.

Major Grimo is a native of Bristol, Rhode Island. He began a career in music as a percussionist, attending the New England Conservatory of music, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education and Percussion Performance. Upon graduation, Major Grimo began his teaching career as an elementary and junior high school band director for the Newton public schools. He later became Director of Instrumental Music at Wachusett Regional High School in Holden, where he received the National Band Association's Citation of Excellence, and the Stanbury Award of the American School Band Director's Association. In 1985, Major Grimo received his Master of Music degree in Wind Ensemble Conducting from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Frank Battisti. He was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Conducting from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1992. Major Grimo has numerous published works to his credit and is a nationally active guest conductor and clinician.