Winter Concert Continues 50th Anniversary Celebration

The Concord Band will present its annual Winter Concert at 51 Walden Street in Concord on Saturday, March 1, 2008, beginning at 8:00 pm. As part of a two year celebration of its 50th Anniversary, the Concord Band is featuring performances of its favorite commissioned works at each major concert. The celebration will climax with the band’s 50th Anniversary Concert in March, 2009. Last fall, the Band began this two-year celebration with performances of two of its commissions—Satiric Dances by Norman Dello Joio and Dichotomy– Impressions of Kerouac by Dan Lutz. The Winter concert will feature compositions the Concord Band commissioned by composers Warren Barker and James Curnow. The concert will also feature guest soloist Ethan Sloane, Professor of Clarinet at Boston University.

The concert will open under the baton of Music Director Dr. William G. McManus with a performance of Triumphant Entrance, composed for the Concord Band by Warren Barker in 1991, and an appropriate selection among the numerous works the Concord Band has performed by this outstanding composer/arranger over the years. The Concord Band’s Assistant Conductor, Paul Berler will take the podium to lead the Band in a performance of Gustav Holst’s First Suite in Eb. This masterwork for band, one of the most popular works in the entire concert band repertoire, is generally regarded as a cornerstone of the great works for band by British composers.

Music Director McManus will return to the stage with clarinetist Ethan Sloane for a performance of Carl Maria von Weber’s Concertino, Op. 26 for clarinet. This concerto is one of the great treasures of the clarinetist’s repertoire and was one of the works that established the clarinet as a leading instrument for the expression of Romantic music. The von Weber Concertino remains today as among the most popular solo pieces for the clarinet.

The first half of the concert will conclude with a performance of From Every Horizon, a tone poem for band by Norman Dello Joio, who composed the very first Concord Band commission, Satiric Dances, in 1975. From Every Horizon is a version of a score done for a film of the same title that was shown at the New York World’s Fair in 1964-65. Dello Joio arranged this exciting work into three short movements which musically portray scenes in New York City.

Assistant Conductor Paul Berler will open the second half of the concert with William Walton’s great concert march, Crown Imperial. This march, typically English in its majestic sonority and stately elegance, was first performed at the coronation ceremony for King George VI, in 1937.

Music Director William McManus will return to the podium with Colours, a six-movement suite for band by Roger Cichy. This is an impressionistic work with each of its six movements representing a particular color. The Concord Band has commissioned Roger Cichy to compose a new work in honor of the Band’s 50th Anniversary. The concert will close with a performance of James Curnow’s Welsh Variants, which was commissioned by the Concord Band and premiered on October 22, 1988, in Sentry Center Auditorium in Concord with the composer conducting.

Review: Concord Band Impresses Audience Again

The Concord Band played a very exciting concert last Saturday, for a decent crowd of escapees from the third game of the World Series. Music Director Bill McManus has honed a very good band into a super one, over his twelve years on the band's podium. He and his Assistant Conductor, Paul Berler, inspired the band through some very challenging music in this concert.

Wham!! on the bass drum to start Roger Cichy's Fanfare for a Festive Day. That set the mood, didn't it? Fanfares served in the past to announce the beginning of the concert—to quiet the audience down. Now-a-days, fanfares rouse us to the spirit of the concert—as did this one. I especially enjoyed the march, the fugue and the horn section throughout this short burst of sound.

After thanking us for attending, Bill McManus and the band played Daniel Lutz's Dichotomy... Impressions of Kerouac—a Concord Band commission with support of the Lowell Cultural Council. Kerouac was a "beat" French Catholic, and this music echoed that. It mixed together jazz, Frere Jacque and mixed meter of 7/8, 7/4 and 7/2 (the seven sacraments)—all into a challenging composition for the band. Bill had no trouble conducting this tricky mixed meter. And the band had no trouble following Bill—listening, listening, listening to each other. At one point, Kerouac's life floated along a river of bubbles, created when the upper-wind players noodled along, each at their own tempo. I enjoyed the ethereal percussion, flute and oboe, the jazzy brass, and the tympani flourish at the end. One particular highlight: Judy Piermarini wailed on a tenor-sax solo (brava, Judy).

Meet the Clarinet Section

The clarinet family:
Contrabass (BB♭), Bass (B♭), Alto (E♭), B♭, E♭

The Instruments

The origins of the modern clarinet, according to the Instrument Encyclopedia, can be traced back to the 14th century. By the late 17th century, this single-reed instrument was an established component of ensembles of many kinds. The clarinet reed, like that of the saxophone, is referred to as a "beating" reed that vibrates against the instrument's mouthpiece, as is distinguished from the double or "free" reed employed on the oboe and bassoon.

The clarinet continued to evolve until the late 1840s, when it was revolutionized through the application of a fingering system that had originally been developed by Theobald Boehm for the modern flute. The Boehm system made the clarinet easier to play, improved its tone quality and expanded the range of each member of the clarinet family (see graphic). Today's set of clarinets, as used in symphonic wind ensembles such as the Concord Band, consists of the five instruments shown, and a few others (e.g., instruments in A and C), more commonly called for in orchestral music, the ranges of which extend above and below that of the most common B♭ clarinet. Before the introduction of the Boehm system, frequent changing of instruments was often a necessity during the course of performing a single piece.

Of the five instruments shown in the graphic at the right, the upper (smaller) four are used in virtually every piece the Concord Band plays. The Band owns a contrabass instrument for those situations in which it is required. The B♭ instrument is without doubt the workhorse of the family. The Band's instrumentation usually consists of one E♭, one alto, two or three basses and as many as 15 B♭ clarinets. Clearly the clarinet section is the most populous in the Concord Band, representing nearly one third of our players.

The success of the clarinet as an instrument is attributable to several factors: the ability of its sound to blend well with that of every other instrument and its flexibility and comfortable fit with every kind of music from folk and jazz to concert music that ranges in time from the pre-Baroque to the most arcane of contemporary works.

The Concord Band clarinet section, gathered at a rehearsal for one of the Band's concerts during the summer of 2007. Left to right, front row: David Purinton, Yvonne Dailey, Claire Napoleon, Karen Whitehead, Adena Schutzberg, Len Schatz and Bob Tyler. Second row: Paul DeWolfe, Paul Silver, Judy Piermarini, Charlie Learoyd, Jeff Leiserson and Elliot Finkelstein. Not present for photo: Lorraine Chase, Gina DePaoli, Anne Kandra, Alvin Lipsky, Linda Menkis, Louis Sinoff and Ann Wirtanen.