The Wheaton Municipal Band honors its mentors on July 25

People make a difference, especially teachers.  In a heartfelt concert on Thursday, July 25, at 8 p.m. in Memorial Park, 208 W. Union Ave, Wheaton, IL, the Wheaton Municipal Band honors those teachers and mentors who have touched their lives in positive ways.

Many of the band’s teachers and mentors will participate in the evening, as the 80-piece Wheaton Municipal Band welcomes a number of them to play in the band.  Others will attend the concert in the audience or be listed in the program.

In addition, music director Dr. Bruce Moss plans to step aside and let several mentors take the podium to conduct the band. One of them is Mike Fagan, whose daughter Emily sits in the band’s oboe section. Emily thought of nominating her father as her mentor, but Susie Crookshank in the clarinet section beat her to it.

“In junior high school I was very shy,” said Crookshank.  “I never spoke to anyone, except Mr. Fagan, who I would say hello to. I never heard I was good at anything in junior high, until Mr. Fagan said I had played a piece for him on the clarinet ‘so very well.’  I wanted to be a band teacher just like him.  I am sure I would not be where I am today without Mr. Fagan. He inspired me to major in music.” 

Also on the program is the rousing “Funiculì, Funiculà Rhapsody”, a fantasia on the famous Neapolitan song arranged for concert band by Japanese composer Yo Goto.  The song was written in 1880 to commemorate the opening of the first funicular cable car on Mount Vesuvius. While the cable car was destroyed in 1944 by the eruption of Vesuvius, the music remains fun and boisterous. 

The evening’s other music selections include:  English Folk Song Suite, by Ralph Vaughan Williams, conducted by William Gilmer, who recently retired from Willowbrook High School, and The Patriots, by Clifton Williams, conducted by William Jastrow, who recently retired from Nequa Valley High School.

Join the Wheaton Municipal Band for a heartfelt evening of music and recognition.  Thursday, July 25 at 8:00 p.m.  Pull up a lawn chair and make yourself comfortable.  Enjoy the beautiful music in Memorial Park.

Looking ahead, the Wheaton Municipal Band will play a free indoor concert at Edman Chapel, on the campus of Wheaton College, at 8 p.m. on Saturday, July 27. The band celebrates the centennial of the birth of legendary American composer and conductor Morton Gould with many of his favorite audience pleasers. Special guest Abby G. Burton joins the band for stories of her father’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, his induction as one of the Kennedy Center Honorees, and his friendship with Benny Goodman and other musical celebrities of the day. Also, the band welcomes MSgt Jay Niepoetter, United States Marine Band and alumnus of the Wheaton Municipal Band, as special guest clarinet soloist.