Fox Valley Concert Band

Tomorrow! Start December with holiday music and vibes at our Home for the Holidays concert.

Our program includes not only all your favorites, like Sleigh Ride and Fantasia for Christmas (Ukrainian Bell carol), but also new pieces like Blues for Santa and A New Orleans Nutcracker Suite.

Admission is free, with no ticket purchase required, and seating is general admission. The performance starts promptly at 3 p.m. at the Norris Cultural Arts Center in St. Charles.

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December 3rd "Home for the Holidays" Concert 🎶 - https://mailchi.mp/4aac19850bd0/december-3rd-home-for-the-holidays-concert
Celebrate the season with the Fox Valley Concert Band at our free concert on Sunday, December 3, 2023 at 3:00 at the Norris Center in St. Charles. You won't want to miss "A New Orleans Nutcracker Suite" arr. by Michael Kamuf or "Blues for Santa" arr. by Michael W. Smith. And did we say cookies? Mingle with members after we jingle at our post concert reception!

Unless you want to arrive an hour early tomorrow, turn your clocks back a hour before you go to sleep tonight!

Sunday, November 5 at 3 p.m. Norris Cultural Arts Center is our first concert of the season — Tributes. Our program includes:

The Daughters of Texas, by John Philip Sousa
Homage to Bharat, by Brian Balmages
Tributes, by Martin Ellerby
A Tribute to Kurt Weill, arranged by Jerry Brubaker
“Nimrod” from Enigma Variations, by Edward Elgar
And more!

As always, admission is free, no tickets are required, and seating is general admission. Program length is approximately 90 minutes, including intermission, and the Norris Center has accessible seating.

This Sunday, November 5 is our first concert of the season! Join us at 3 p.m. Norris Cultural Arts Center for Tributes!

A highlight of the program is a North American premiere of Tributes, by Martin Ellerby. Each movement is a tribute to an English composer, the first being William Alwyn. Alwyn lived from 1905-1985 and was an accomplished flutist in addition to composer. According to Wikipedia, he “relished dissonance and devised his own alternative to twelve-tone serialism.”

Alwyn composed in many mediums, including three operas, dozens of film scores, five symphonies, concerti for piano, flute, and violin, and sonatas for violin, clarinet, flute, and oboe. He graduated from and taught at the Royal Academy of Music and was very active in British music publishing organizations. Both his first and second wives were also composers — Olive Pull and Doreen Carwithen — with whom he collaborated as a performer.

In more recent popular culture, figure skater Michelle Kwan used his piece “Lyra Angelica” for harp and string orchestra in the 1998 Olympics (watch here: https://youtu.be/UdYPFKO0X1k?si=dQP3bTwz4TQHfmp_ ). Alwyn’s great-grandson is actor Joe Alwyn who is known from the films The Favourite and Catherine Called Birdy, as well as writing and producing songs on Taylor Swift’s Folklore, Evermore, and Midnights albums.

One of the tributes on our Sunday, November 5 Tributes concert is a medley of songs by German-American composer Kurt Weill.

Weill lived from 1900-1950, mostly in Germany, but became an American citizen in 1943. He studied with Engelbert Humperdinck and Feruccio Busoni and composed orchestral suites, lieder, string quartets, and a symphony, but what he is best known for is his theatrical work.

Starting in the 1920s he began composing more vocal music and musical theater. His two greatest collaborators were lyricist Bertold Brecht and actress Lotte Lenya (who also became his wife). 1928’s The Threepenny Opera includes the songs “Mack the Knife” and “Pirate Jenny,” and Happy End includes “Bilbao Song,” all of which are in the concert’s medley.

Weill fled Germany in 1933 and permanently moved to New York in 1935. Unlike other musical theater composers, who used music to reflect characters’ inner thoughts and feelings, Weill used music as a commentary on the events of the play. He believed that music served a socially useful purpose.

Come hear the music of Kurt Weill at Norris Cultural Arts Center at 3 p.m. on November 5! Admission is free and seating is general admission.

November 5th Concert 🎶 - https://mailchi.mp/ef12efc703aa/november-5th-concert-tributes
TRIBUTES 3:00 PM Norris Cultural Arts Center in St. Charles
Free Performance

One month away!

Our first concert of the season features works written in tribute to others. We will be performing the North American premiere of Tributes, by Martin Ellerby. Each movement is composed in the style of an influential British composer — William Alwyn, Edmund Rubbra, and Malcolm Arnold.

Other pieces on the program are “Nimrod” from Enigma Variations (Elgar), Tribute to Kurt Weill (Weill), Homage to Bharat (Balmages), and Salute to the Armed Forces.

Tonight is our second rehearsal! Tuesday nights 7:30-9:30 p.m. at Geneva High School.

We need: percussion, oboe, clarinet, and trumpet. Interested musicians can attend a rehearsal to see if we are a good fit before auditioning.

Our first concert program of the season is “Tributes,” and we are playing music by Martin Ellerby, Michael Kamen, Kurt Weill, John Philip Sousa, Brian Balmages, and more! Visit www.FVCB.org for more information.

Fox Valley Concert Band – The Fox Valley Concert Band performs formal fall, winter, and spring concerts, festive Christmas concerts, and a summer concert series. The Fox Valley Concert Band performs formal fall, winter, and spring concerts, festive Christmas concerts, and a summer concert series.

One more day!

Pianist Keith Miller joins us to perform Warsaw Concerto, by Richard Addinsell. The music is programmatic, written to depict the struggle of the Poles against the 1939 invasion by N**i Germany. Addinsell composed it as part of his score for the film Dangerous Moonlight in 1941. In the film, a Polish pianist meets an American reporter in 1939. He escapes to New York after the invasion, where he meets the reporter again and they marry. He then becomes a pilot for the RAF while in England for a performance. His plane crashes during the Battle of Britain, but he lives. The reporter finds him in London with amnesia, but he slowly remembers the piano concerto he composed (the Warsaw Concerto), which leads him to remember his wife. Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano concerto and Chopin’s “Military” Polonaise were among Addinsell’s inspirations for the Warsaw Concerto.

As always, admission to our concerts is free, with no ticket required. Seating is general admission.

In addition to our concert at Norris Cultural Arts Center on SUNDAY, we are playing. Shorter performance before today’s Cougars game.

We have a concert! This coming Sunday, July 2 at 3 pm Norris Cultural Arts Center.

One piece on our program is “Funiculi, Funicula,” by Luigi Denza in 1880. The song was written to commemorate the opening the first funicular on Mount Vesuvius. A funicular is a cable car railway that takes people up and down mountains. The cars are counter-balanced, meaning the ascending and descending cars move at the same pace.

“Funiculi, Funicula” has been recorded by many famous opera singers over the years, including Andrea Bocelli, Luciano Pavarotti, and Mario Lanza.

Other pieces on our program include Sousa’s The Thunderer and Stars and Stripes Forever marches, Fillmore’s Americans We, Beauty and the Beast medley, Amparito Roca, and more!

Admission is free, no ticket required.



http://www.grandvoyageitaly.com/piazza/funiculi-funicula-funiculars-in-italy

Tuesday, June 20th 7:00 PM Concert for Holmstad Residents 🎶 - https://mailchi.mp/6b34536d9c9f/june-20th-holmstad-performance-6087684 We look forward to our biannual performances for this enthusiastic and supportive audience!

Sunday, July 2nd: Sizzling Summer Concert 🎶 - https://mailchi.mp/46c2a482a9af/july-2nd-summer-concert-6086892

While our 40th anniversary concert today (in 3 hours!) will not feature anybody riding a horse while playing an instrument, we do have several special guest conductors and a tribute to former members.

We will be playing John Philip Sousa’s Hands Across the Sea and Leemans’ March of the Belgian Paratroopers if you are craving some marches.

(To see a mounted band you will have to watch yesterday’s coronation coverage on demand or streaming.)

3p.m. at Norris Cultural Arts Center in St. Charles. Free, general admission, no ticket required, reception after.

Our 40th anniversary concert this Sunday includes the music of this influential composer and orchestrator. Robert Russell Bennett’s most well-know works for band are Suite of Old American Dances and Symphonic Songs for Band, which is on our program.

Bennett lived from 1894-1981 and was born in Kansas City. Lasting effects of childhood polio kept him from serving in combat in WWI, but he did direct the 70th Infantry Band at Camp Funston. His attempts to improve the band’s musicianship were thwarted by a pandemic (1918-1919 flu) as soldiers kept getting sick. (Famous people, they’re just like us!)

By then he had already moved to New York City to further his musical studies and work in Tin Pan Alley. His first noteworthy collaborator was Jerome Kern, for whom he orchestrated the musical Show Boat. Bennett then moved on to an even more significant collaboration with Richard Rodgers. His Broadway orchestrations include: Oklahoma!, Finian’s Rainbow, Carmen Jones, Kiss Me Kate, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (we played the title song on our last concert!).

Robert Russell Bennett also has an extensive list of original compositions for orchestra, band, and chamber ensembles.

Come hear us play Symphonic Songs for Band this Sunday, May 7 at 3 p.m. in St. Charles. As always, admission is free and seating is general admission.

May 7th: 40th Anniversary Concert 🎶 - https://mailchi.mp/f166540f9e4c/may-7th-40th-anniversary-concert-6075655

Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987) was born and raised in Philadelphia, where he also completed his undergraduate and graduate studies (Combs College, Curtis Institute, and Philadelphia Conservatory). As a professor, he taught at Juilliard for over 40 years. Two of his composition students were Peter Schickele (PDQ Bach) and Philip Glass.

His works for wind instruments include Pageant in 1953. Persichetti was commissioned by the American Bandmasters Association and the work was premiered at the organization’s 1953 conference in Miami.

Come hear Pageant, by Vincent Persichetti at our 40th anniversary concert! Sunday, May 7 at 3 p.m. Norris Cultural Arts Center.

In addition to the band from Magee Middle School, we will have a surprise guest. What or who is it? Only way to know is to attend our concert at 3 p.m. tomorrow.

Free admission, general seating, and a post-concert reception.

March 5th Concert: Night and Day 🎶 - https://mailchi.mp/21f2c4bd1fcd/march-5th-night-and-day-concert-6060195

Three Sundays away!

Night and Day features Magee Middle School students from Round Lake with their director Charlie Stonehill. We are excited to welcome back young musicians to our March concert after a COVID hiatus.

On this program will be:

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, by Lerner and Lane
Watchman Tell Us of the Might, by Mark Camphouse
Awayaday, by Adam Gorb
Cole Porter on Broadway, by Cole Porter
And more!

Admission is free and seating is general admission, so no ticket is required. 🙂

Sunday, March 5 at 3 p.m. Norris Cultural Arts Center in St. Charles.

Sunday March 5!

Cole Porter on Broadway — Porter, arr Barker
Watchman Tell Us of the Night — Camphouse
Awayaday — Gorb
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever — Lerner

We resume our spring tradition of including local young musicians with The Buehlman Band from Magee Middle School in Round Lake. They join us on Circus Days, by Karl King.

Thank you to all our donors, patrons, and supporters!

See you next on March 5, 2023 for Night and Day with the Buehlmann Band from John T. Magee Middle School.

Mark your calendar for our next concert!

To make a contribution to the Fox Valley Concert Band you can go to http://www.fvcb.org/wp/support/ to donate through PayPal.