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The Michigan City Municipal Band (MCMB) will begin its 157th season on Thursday, June 5, 7:30p, at the Guy F. Foreman Bicentennial Amphitheater in Washington Park. The MCMB is sponsored by the City of Michigan City.

The MCMB’s 157th season will consist of ten free concerts, beginning June 5, and ending August 7. 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. With one exception, all of the concerts will be performed on Thursdays at 7:30p, and will last about an hour. On June 19, the concert will take place at 4:30p as part of the Michigan City Juneteenth Celebration. The Juneteenth MCMB concert will be followed that evening by a performance of The Reggie Foster Experience.

Highlights of the MCMB summer concert series include special guest soloists and three commissions by acclaimed composers. Guest artists will be GySgt. Hiram Diaz, euphonium, from the US Marine Band (July 31); Carnessa Carnes, narrator (June 19); Anne Marie Bice, soprano (June 26, July 24, and August 7), Richard Liwosz, clarinet (June 26); Dr. Lauren Hartman, soprano (July 10); Charles Steck and Ryan Rabe, trumpets (July 24). Other soloists and special events will be announced during the season.

The MCMB will present the premieres of three commissions:

Winds Across the Water by Erika Svanoe (June 5 and again on July 10 and August 7)

Yearning to Breathe Free by Michele Fernandez (July 24 and August 7)

Rhapsody for Euphonium by Kevin Day (July 31)

Erika Svanoe is a composer and conductor from Wisconsin. Winds Across the Water contains melodies and intervals inspired by Dr. Svanoe’s impressions of the Michigan City Lighthouse, and the breeze felt by standing at the edge of Lake Michigan in Washington Park. Michele Fernandez is a composer and conductor from Florida. Yearning to Breathe Free is a tribute to The Statue of Liberty, as we prepare to celebrate USA 250 in 2026. Kevin Day is a composer from California. His Rhapsody for Euphonium will showcase the band with world-class euphonium soloist GySgt. Hiram Diaz from the US Marine Band, “The President’s Own.”

On June 19, the MCMB will also reprise its 2024 premiere of Michigan City composer Dan Schaaf’s composition Remembering Naomi. The work honors Naomi Anderson, African-American suffragist and Michigan City Native. Naomi’s words will be narrated by Michigan City’s Carnessa Carnes.

In addition to being outstanding performers, many of the MCMB members are successful conductors. Some of those conductors will be featured on individual compositions throughout the summer: Tracy Bermingham (June 12), Jacen Smith (June 26), Sarah DeRossi (July 10), Paul Wagner (July 24), and Julie Plant (August 7). The band will also recognize two just-retired members—Roger and Susan Smith—who played in the band for 69 and 57 years, respectively (June 26).

All of the concerts are free, and everyone is welcome. School band members and young children are especially encouraged to attend. Parking on Lake Shore Drive is prohibited. Parking is available in the lots closest to the amphitheater, as well as the Senior Center. Entrance to the park is free with a Michigan City Park sticker; otherwise, there is a parking fee of $4 for the band concert.

Jeffrey Scott Doebler is the conductor for the MCMB, and Quincy Ford is the assistant conductor. In 2018, Dr. Doebler was named a Distinguished Hoosier by Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb. 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. Mr. Ford, principal saxophone in the MCMB, is retired director of bands and music department chair from Michigan City High School.

Thursday, July 13, 2023 Concert

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The sixth concert of the 155th season of the Michigan City Municipal Band (MCMB) will be held Thursday, July 13, 7:30p, at the Guy F. Foreman Bicentennial Amphitheater in Washington Park. The concert will feature soprano soloist Anne Bice, and will honor retired MCMB horn player and secretary/treasurer JoFran Bendix.

The July 13 concert repertoire will be:

Indiana Folks March by Hale A. VanderCook
American Overture Band by Joseph Willcox Jenkins
How Far I’ll Go by Lin Manuel Miranda
Pocahontas Medley arr. John Moss
Be Still My Soul arr. Robert W. Smith
Alleluia! Laudamus Te by Alfred Reed
Cupid Shuffle by Cupid (Bryson Bernard)
Pickles and Peppers by Adaline Shepherd
Beyond the Lighted Tower by Roger Cichy
Audience sing-along: God Bless America by Irving Berlin

In addition to being outstanding performers, many of the Michigan City Municipal Band members are successful conductors. On five concerts this season, conductors from within the band are being featured, each leading one composition. On July 13, Phil Hahn will conduct Pickles and Peppers by Adaline Shepherd. A retired music educator, Mr. Hahn served as director of bands in the Boone Grove schools. Mr. Hahn plays horn in the Michigan City Municipal Band, Windiana Concert Band, South Shore Brass Band, German Band, and Valparaiso Community/University Concert Band. He is a frequent conductor of the Valparaiso Community/University Concert Band. Mr. Hahn earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Valparaiso University. Composer Adaline Shepherd Olson was born in Iowa, then spent most of her life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mrs. Olson was a pianist and a self-taught composer. Her most famous work was a ragtime selection, Pickles and Peppers. The composition sold over two million copies, and was used as the theme song in the 1908 unsuccessful presidential bid of William Jennings Bryan.

Hale VanderCook was probably the second most famous conductor of the Michigan City Municipal Band—second only to Dr. Guy Foreman, who led the band for an astonishing 60 years. Mr. VanderCook conducted the Michigan City Municipal Band, known then as the Ames Union Band, for several seasons around the turn of the 20th century. He went on to found the VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, which remains well-known for training music teachers. Maestro VanderCook was also a successful composer. Among the works that he wrote while leading Ames Union Band was Indiana Folks.

American Overture for Band by Joseph Willcox Jenkins was composed in 1953 for the US Army Field Band and its commander, Colonel Chester Whiting. Mr. Jenkins was a staff arranger for the US Army Field Band and the US Army Chorus. He later taught at Duquesne University.

Anne Marie BiceAnne Marie Bice is a voice professor from Valparaiso University. She has extensive performance experience, sings in a wide variety of styles, and has been soloing with the Michigan City Municipal Band since 2015. In her final appearance with the MCMB this summer, Prof. Bice will sing music from two movies: Moana and Pocahontas.

Robert W. Smith’s setting of Be Still My Soul is a gentle lyrical selection that allows the band to demonstrate the beautiful and blended tone of the ensemble. The melody is known to many as a hymn and because it is the main theme from the composition Finlandia by Jean Sibelius. Robert W. Smith teaches at Troy University in Alabama, and has published over 600 compositions and arrangements.

Alleluia! Laudamus Te is a canticle of praise by Alfred Reed. Dr. Reed was one of the most successful composers of band music in the second half of the 20th Century, and was one of the first leaders in the creation of collegiate academic degree programs to prepare students for the music industry.

The stage name of pop singer Bryson Bernard is “Cupid.” A native of Louisiana, Cupid’s most famous hit is 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?

6-19-25 Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won

Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered
Out from the gloomy past
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast

God of our weary years
God of our silent tears
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way
Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light
Keep us forever in the path, we pray
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee
Shadowed beneath Thy hand
May we forever stand
True to our God
True to our native land
Our native land

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