Alunmi Band sets first concert of season
The Utah State University Summer Alumni Band takes the stage this Sunday, June 11, at 7 p.m. in the Kent Concert Hall of the Chase Fine Arts Center on campus. The band’s series of free concerts, now in its 64th year, is an annual gift from the university to the citizens of Cache Valley and its summer residents.
This summer’s season includes five performances: June 11 and 25, and July 2, 16 and 30. All of the programs except the July 2 event take place in the Kent Concert Hall. The July 2 concert will be performed on the USU Quad, just east of Old Main.
“The band’s programs follow the traditional park band concert formula established in the early 1900s by the great park bands led by such famous musicians as John Philip Sousa and Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore,” said director Nicholas Morrison, associate director of bands in USU’s music department. “The founder of this band, Max F. Dalby, adapted Sousa’s programming ideas for this ensemble in the early 1960s and, with a few minor changes and updated songs, the band continues in this tradition.”
The opening June 11 program features two soloists, John and Susan Skinner. John, a trumpeter who hails from Carmichael, Calif., will perform a flugelhorn solo arranged specially for him, “Where is Love?” Later on the program, his wife, Susan, an accomplished jazz vocalist, performs two selections by American composer George Gershwin, “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “S’Wonderful.” The couple returns to the stage Monday night, June 12, at 7 p.m. for the reunion of the Scotsman Orchestra, the reincarnation of the 1960s jazz band.
Other selections on Sunday’s program include Debussy’s “The Girl With the Flaxen Hair,” “American Overture for Band” by Jenkins, and “Finale” from Dvorak’s “New World Symphony.”
Each program this summer will conclude with a patriotic selection.
“I understand that there are lots of differing points of view on current political matters, and it isn’t our intent to take a particular position,” said Morrison. “The band simply wishes to underscore the importance of our working together as a nation and to recall the sacrifices of those who earned and preserve our freedom.”
Marches and novelty tunes fill out the remainder of the opening program.
“I’d particularly like to invite the young people of Cache Valley to these performances,” noted Morrison. “It can be expensive for a family to attend a performance together, and young children are not always welcomed. Because these Aggie alumni donate their services, we’re able to offer these concerts to the public without charge. We only ask that parents with very young children sit near the exits in case their little one doesn’t like our programming.”