The North Oakland Concert Band will hold a free concert at Lake Orion High School Saturday, Oct. 24 as it opens its 2009-10 season.
The West Michigan Concert Winds from Muskegon, MI, will join the NOCB for special joint concert at 7 p.m. in the auditorium at LOHS, 495 E. Scripps Road. Each band will perform a program of music, followed by two combined numbers.
The Winds will open the concert with works such as Bernstein’s Wrong Note Rag and Colours by Roger Cichy. They will also play Five Mellow Winds by David Schanke, which features a quintet leading the band. Tuba Tiger Rag is likely to be an audience favorite, organizers said.
The NOCB will perform selections by Sousa and Vaughn Williams, as well as Stephen Bulla’s beautiful Rhapsody for Flute, featuring a NOCB flutist Robin Myers. The band will also perform Malcolm Arnold’s Tam O’Shanter Overture, which musically depicts scenes from the famous Robert Burns poem. The two bands will combine to perform the Free Lance March by Sousa, as well as Philip Sparke’s Hanover Festival.
The NOCB, conducted by Annette Kline, has provided the North Oakland area with free concerts for over 30 years. The band members represent a diverse cross section of citizens from the area, including many music professionals. Although rehearsals and most concerts are held in Lake Orion, the reputation of the group has attracted musicians from all over Oakland, Macomb and Genesee counties. The communities with the greatest representation in the band are Lake Orion, Clarkston, Oxford, and Rochester.
The West Michigan Concert Winds received the prestigious Sudler Silver Scroll Award in 2005 and were only the second group from Michigan to be honored with this award. Founded in 1979, the Winds consist of about 80 members from the Muskegon area. They are conducted by Gail Bretching, who is the band director for the Muskegon Community College.
The NOCB performs several concerts each season, featuring a wide variety of music genres including classical, jazz, and pops. The group is financially self-supporting, relying primarily on member dues and donations from patrons to cover the cost associated with running the organization. Learn about future concerts at www.nocb.org.