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2023 marks the 155th season of the Michigan City Municipal Band.  The 2023 concert series will consist of ten free Thursday concerts, beginning June 8, and ending August 10.  All concerts begin at 7:30p and last about an hour. The band plays a wide variety of music, with concerts designed to entertain audience members of all ages. The MCMB also plays for the annual Memorial Day ceremony at Greenwood Cemetery, and in the Michigan City Patriotic Parade.

Highlights of the summer concert series include special guest soloists and two commissions by award-winning composers. Soloists will be GySgt. Hiram Diaz, euphonium, from the US Marine Band (August 3); and Anne Marie Bice, soprano (June 22 and 29, and July 13). Other soloists and special events will be announced during the season.

The world premiere of Blue Water, Blue Sky by Catherine McMichael will take place on August 3. Also on August 3, the Concerto for Euphonium and Band by Tom Davoren will showcase the band with world-class euphonium soloist GySgt. Hiram Diaz, in three beautiful and dazzling movements.

In addition to being outstanding performers, many of the band members are also successful conductors. Some of those conductors will be featured on individual compositions throughout the summer.

Jeffrey Scott Doebler is the conductor for the MCMB, and Quincy Ford is the assistant conductor. Dr. Doebler serves as director of music education and bands at Valparaiso University. He is a past president of the Indiana Bandmasters Association and the Indiana Music Education Association. He is founder and conductor of Windiana: Professional Concert Band of Northwest Indiana. Mr. Ford, principal saxophone in the MCMB, is retired director of bands from Michigan City High School.

Premiere of New Work for Wind Band, Thursday July 14, 2022

Premiere of New Work for WIND BAND

<The following was originally written for composer Jesse Ayers website, reposted here by permission>

We are excited to announce the premiere of our latest work for wind band, WHERE THE STORMY WINDS BLOW, Thursday, July 14, by the Michigan City Municipal Band (Indiana), conducted by Dr. Jeffery Scott Doebler, with Richard AmRhein, narrating/singing.

The 14-minute “concert story” tells the true story of an 1873 shipwreck that occurred on Lake Michigan between Beaver Island and Traverse City, told first-hand through the actual words of the son of the story’s principal character. The son’s oral account was found on a 1937 field recording housed at the Library of Congress.

In addition to the spoken narration, the narrator also sings several verses, interspersed throughout the work, of a Lake Michigan sea shanty known as “The Gallagher Boys,” a ballad about this same incident, composed by a Beaver Island songster who personally knew all involved. The shanty was obtained from the same 1937 field recordings, sung by the aforementioned son. Much of the music in the Ayers’ composition is based on motives drawn from the shanty’s tune.

The audience also participates in the work by singing, at various times throughout the work, the refrain line of the shanty, “For to sail o’er Lake Michigan where the stormy winds blow.”

This work was commissioned by the historic Michigan City Municipal Band, now in its 154th season, and is the latest in a series of commissions by the band to foster the creation of new repertoire.

Ayers and Doebler have collaborated numerous times over the past 23 years, and have a close working relationship that has resulted in strong, well-received performances. Doebler has conducted all of Ayers’ works for wind band several times each, and premiered many of them.
The concert will be at 7:30 p.m. at the Guy F. Foreman Bicentennial Amphitheater in Washington Park, Michigan City, IN. Admission is free. There may be fee for parking at the park.

The Star-Spangled Banner

The Star-Spangled Banner

Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

8-10-23 America the Beautiful

America the Beautiful

O Beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain;
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee.
And crown thy good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea.

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