Press Release: Concord Band to perform ‘Monuments’

Concord's Louanne MacKenzie and
Laura Finkelstein performing with
the Concord Band.

The Sudler Silver Scroll-winning Concord Band celebrates its 56th year, embarking on a season-long exploration of some of the great works for symphonic concert band. The Fall Concert, MONUMENTS, will be presented at 8 p.m. Oct. 25 at the Performing Arts Center at 51 Walden Street in Concord. The concert features music with programmatic undertones penned by American and international composers, and represents a wide variety of musical styles and genres.

Victory at Sea by Richard Rodgers stands as a monumental and much-loved musical score from an equally-monumental television series from the early 1950s. Robert Russell Bennett’s arrangement of the Symphonic Scenario is a powerful medley that captures the emotion of America at war in the Atlantic and Pacific. Two pieces written for band, Monument by Robert W. Smith and Julie Giroux’s K2: The Savage Mountain, depict the natural beauty of mountains and the human joys and hazards associated with them. Smith’s work celebrates Colorado and includes music that represents some of the settlers who chose to live in those mountains. Giroux says that K2, the world’s second highest peak “calls to mountain climbers around the world with the song of a deadly siren.” Her music portrays and honors the danger and exhilaration those climbers face.

For the balance of the fall concert program, Concord Band Music Director James O’Dell has chosen music that displays different twists on the Monument theme. Philip Sparke’s Spirit of the Sequoia honors the giant California tree and the Native American spirit related to such long-lived trees. Threnos is Greek for lamentation and was written by Daniel Bukvich in memory of Abraham Lincoln and his Gettysburg Address. It explores the drama and rhythmic implications of the words themselves. The concert also includes two short pieces about man-made monuments: Francis Polenc’s Eiffel Tower Polka and Karl King’s Bunker Hill March. Rounding out the program, the Concord Band will play “Themes” from Ferde Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite.

The 2013 Sudler Silver Scroll award was presented to the Concord Band by the John Philip Sousa Society “to identify, recognize, and honor a community band which has identified particularly high standards of excellence in music presentation and a significant and leading role in the cultural environment in their community.” Tickets to the Concord Band’s Fall Concert are $20 for adults and $10 for students and seniors.