THE CONCORD BAND was founded in 1959 as a marching unit for
Concord’s Patriot’s Day parade, but since 1970 has been exclusively a
concert organization, playing fourteen or more concerts each year. The
sixty-five-member Band performs regularly at its permanent home, the
Performing Arts Center at 51 Walden Street in Concord, at its summer
home at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts, and at Concord’s
“Picnic in the Park” on Independence Day. The Band has also played
summer concerts in the towns of Belmont, Bolton, Hudson and Littleton,
Massachusetts, and Milford and Nashua, New Hampshire. The Concord
Band, once described by then University of Massachusetts Director of
Bands Malcolm W. Rowell as “a wonderful ensemble with a marvelous
history...a cultural treasure,” also participates frequently in the annual
Boston Festival of Bands held in Faneuil Hall each June.
In 2013 the Concord Band received the Sudler Silver Scroll from the
John Philip Sousa Foundation. This award “recognizes community concert
bands of outstanding musical excellence” and is “North America’s
most prestigious award for community concert bands”. The Concord Band
was the first community band in New England to receive the Sudler Silver
Scroll.
Members of the Band represent many area communities and a wide
variety of professions. Band members have played in the organization for
an average of nearly sixteen years; sixteen have been members for
twenty-five years or more. Many are alumni of prestigious college, military,
or professional bands.
Over the years, the Band has engaged numerous noted guest conductors.
These have included Frederick Fennell, William Revelli, Arnald
Gabriel, Leonard B. Smith, John Corley, Willis Traphagan, Peter Hazzard,
Lee Chrisman, James Curnow, Steven Grimo, Thomas G. Everett, Alfred
Dentino, Christopher Morehouse, Paul Berler, William H. Silvester, Malcolm
W. Rowell, Steven Barbas, Elliot Del Borgo and Keith Brion.
Lt. Col. Steven Grimo, then commander of the US Air Force Academy
Band, has described the Concord Band as “true Patriots and the Soul
of New England. The Concord Band is truly a Community Band with a
professional attitude. They enjoy the experience of making music and
know how to Make it Happen!”
Since 1967 the Band has either commissioned or has had written for
it 79 new works for symphonic wind ensemble—possibly more than any
other community band in the world. Such works have been written by
composers Norman Dello Joio, Peter Hazzard, Richard Cornell, Robert
Sirota, John Bavicchi, Douglas Toland, Kurt Phinney, Warren Barker,
John Higgins, James Curnow, Thomas J. McGah, Dan Lutz, Stephen
Bulla, William Gordon, Lewis Buckley, Julie Giroux, Elliot Del Borgo,
Jerry Seeco, Roger Cichy, Andrew Boysen, Jr., Rene Pfister, et al, and
Jerry Vabulas, as well as by the Band's Music Director Laureate, the late
William M. Toland, and Music Director Emeritus, Dr. William G.
McManus.
The Concord Band’s published CDs, A Winter Festival, The Best of
the Concord Band in Concert: 1992-1994, and The Concord Band Salutes
America—as well as concert audio and video recordings, limited
edition discs available to friends of the Band—are a great way to preserve
one’s memory of the Band.
