Wheaton Municipal Band Showtime Concert

Summer has arrived, and along with warm weather comes the long awaited Wheaton Municipal Band Concerts. Set in idyllic Memorial Park in downtown Wheaton, concerts begin on Thursday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m. Get ready to celebrate the 90^th Anniversary of the Wheaton Municipal Band. The 90-piece concert band, considered on of the finest of its kind in the nation, delights audience each week during June, July and the beginning of August. Cities all over the United States try to emulate this “precious gem,” but the Wheaton Municipal Band continues to strive for excellence. Watch for a season of nostalgia as the Band looks back at its 90-year history and looks forward to new ventures. The Wheaton Park District plans to remove the existing band shell at the end of this summer, so this is your last chance to hear the band in the historic band shell. The current band shell has served as a concert venue since 1958. Park District plans call for replacing the old shell with a new, more modern, state-of-the-art structure. Construction is scheduled to begin in August 2019.

Dr. Bruce Moss, the band’s music director, (celebrating his 40^th year as the WMB’s director) announced the first, kick-off concert of the 2019 season, “Showtime.” Dr. Moss divides the idea of “Showtime” into several categories-Opera, Movies, Broadway, and Sousa Operettas. Of course, concert bands boasts a legacy of marches, but this first concert starts with less traditional band marches from Operas. The energy of “March Hongrois from the Damnation of Faust” by Hector Berlioz sets the tone for an exciting evening of music. A lesser-known opera, “The Improvisator” by d’Albert brings stunning symphonic sounds and shows off the outstanding musicianship of the band’s instrumentalists.

“Show Time” conjures up images of the silver screen, and what better music evokes those images than that of Richard Rogers and Henry Mancini. Moving to Broadway, the band presents the exciting score from the Broadway Tony Award winning “Wicked” and the ever-popular movie, “Frozen.”

Dr. Moss knows that The Wheaton Municipal Band’s enthusiastic and loyal audience loves Sousa. So, he has programmed in a Sousa section, but this concert features Sousa as rarely heard in the music of Sousa Operettas. Sousa wrote 6 operettas, which he pulled some of his famous marches from. One of them programmed for the concert is “El Capitan.”

Come celebrate the opening concert of the 90th Season of the Wheaton Municipal Band on Thursday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m. in Memorial Park in downtown Wheaton. For more information check out the band’s website at http://www.wheatonmunicipal band.org.