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2022 marks the 154th season of the Michigan City Municipal Band.  The 2022 concert series will consist of ten free Thursday concerts, beginning June 9, and ending August 11. All concerts begin at 7:30p and last about an hour at the Guy F. Foreman Bicentennial Amphitheater in Washington Park. 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 (July 28); Dr. George Wolfe, saxophone (June 23); Anne Marie Bice, soprano (June 16 and 30); and Rick AmRhein, baritone/narrator (July 14). Additional soloists may be announced later in the season.

The world premiere of Where the Stormy Winds Blow by Dr. Jesse Ayers will take place on July 14. The work is based on a true story, recorded in the Library of Congress, about a Lake Michigan shipwreck with a triumphal ending. Rick AmRhein will serve as narrator and baritone soloist, and the audience will be invited to sing along on a Lake Michigan sea shanty. On July 28, 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.

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.

Thursday, August 11, 2022 Concert

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The tenth and final concert of the 154th season of the Michigan City Municipal Band (MCMB) will be held Thursday, August 11, 7:30p, at the Guy F. Foreman Bicentennial Amphitheater in Washington Park.

Music on the August 11 concert will include:

Castle Walk by James Reese Europe and Ford Dabney
Our Cast Aways by Julie Giroux
Tuba feature: Solo Pomposo by Al Hayes
Waltz: The Flashing Eyes of Andalusia by John Philip Sousa
William Tell Overture by Giaocchino Rossini
Mountains in the Mist by Michael Boo
Rolling Thunder March by Henry Fillmore
Abba on Broadway arr. Michael Brown
Sing along: America, the Beautiful arr. Carmen Dragon
The Stars and Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa

Lt. James Reese EuropeJames Reese Europe was the first African American bandmaster in the US Army. Before World War I, Mr. Europe was a successful band leader and composer in the USA, earning the nickname “The King of Jazz”, and he led the first concert by African Americans at Carnegie Hall in 1912. Maestro Europe went on to lead a renowned military band in Europe during World War I. Upon his death in 1919, Lieutenant Europe was the first African American in New York City to have a public funeral, and he was then laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Castle Walk showcases the Ragtime style. The United States military band of Lieutenant James Reese Europe is believed to have played the first Ragtime music in France.

Our Cast Aways is a gentle reflection on pets who enter animal shelters, and especially those who must be put down. The dedication reads: To “those who rescue, those who get rescued, and especially…those whose rescue never comes.” When composer Julie Giroux won the first of her three Emmy Awards, she was the first woman and the youngest person ever to win the award in that category.

The Michigan City Municipal Band is blessed with an exceptionally strong tuba section. We’ll feature them on a 1911 composition by Al Hayes, in the style of other turn-of-the-20th-century solos with band. It starts with a triumphal march, then features a cadenza, then moves into the style of a polka.Continue reading→

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?

8-11-22 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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