Posted: Wednesday, May 7, 2008 12:00 am
The Willamette Valley Concert Band will commemorate Memorial Day with a free concert at 7 p.m. on May 26 in the LaSells Stewart Center at Oregon State University in Corvallis.
The program will consist of patriotic and popular music and also will feature the Memorial Middle School bell choirs from Albany and singers Gale Hazel and Peter Butler. The band will perform fanfares, marches, songs from "The Sound of Music" and a medley of swing-era tunes.
Julie Buchert, musical director for Memorial Middle School, will direct the bell choirs in several selections following intermission. They will join the concert band's trumpet section for its grand finale performance of Stars and Stripes Forever, by John Philip Sousa.
Hazel, a soprano from Corvallis, and Butler, a baritone from Lebanon, will sing selections from Richard Rogers' and Oscar Hammerstein's musical, "The Sound of Music." Both singers have performed extensively in the mid-Willamette Valley and are members of the Corvallis Repertory Singers.
During one of the band's featured pieces, Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copland, Butler will narrate excerpts from several of Abraham Lincoln's speeches, including the Gettysburg Address.
Other program numbers include Fanfare for Freedom by Morton Gould, who composed it during WWII for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra; the William Tell Overture by Gioacchino Antonio Rossini, parts of which became famous as the theme song for The Lone Ranger radio and television programs; and Folk Suite by well-known African American composer William Grant Still.
The Sandpaper Ballet by Leroy Anderson will celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, while Big Band Bash will feature well-known songs made famous by Stan Kenton, Glenn Miller, Count Basie and Duke Ellington.
The Armed Forces Salute showcases the official songs of the five major U.S. military branches, and The John F. Kennedy March by Nelson Riddle will be familiar to some as the theme from the acclaimed TV series Profiles in Courage. The band also will play several Sousa marches.
Any donations to the concert will benefit Mid-Willamette Valley young musicians. Proceeds will support scholarships to help area middle- and high-school band musicians attend summer music camps.
The concert is sponsored by Mario Pastega, of Corvallis, and Russell Tripp, of Albany.
The Willamette Valley Concert Band is directed by Dr. Richard Sorenson, emeritus director of bands at WOU. Christine Barreto, a retired Lebanon music teacher, is the assistant director.
For further information, go to www.willamettevalleyconcertband.org or contact Sorenson at 503-838-3474.