BELLEFONTE — The Bellefonte Community Band will hold its free spring concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 7, in the Bellefonte High School auditorium. The event is open to the public.
The band is directed by Joshua E. Long, a Penn State music education graduate who played in the Blue Band. He has a performance degree in euphonium from the University of Hartford, and is now pursuing a doctorate degree at Penn State. He and his wife, Becky, live in State College.
“Our concert is entitled ‘Marches, Dances and Celebrations,’ which hopefully our audience will connect with, or at least recognize something pertaining to their lives. The concert is intended for audiences of all ages, since our goal is to have something for everyone,” said Long.
The concert program includes a variety of music genres, with songs such as “Southern Hymn” by Samuel Hazo, Tchaikovsky’s “Marche Slave,” “Havendance” by David Holsinger, “Sinfonia Nobilissima” by Robert Jager, Gioachino Rossini’s well-known “Overture to William Tell,” and others.
Long noted that some of the band’s music is quite difficult to perform.
“My idea is to always improve the Bellefonte Community Band while also entertaining the audience,” he said.
The Central Pennsylvania Community Band, led by director Paul Kellerman, of Mill Hall, also will perform during the concert. The two bands will combine to present the “Americans We” march by Henry Fillmore and the Carmen Dragon arrangement of “America the Beautiful” by Samuel Ward.
Long said the idea of having a joint concert with another community band is something he experienced while growing up in eastern Pennsylvania, where there was a benefit concert in which four community bands played. The Bellefonte Community Band participates in a similar venue each year, when some of the band members join the Mid-Penn Band, a group of several community bands in the mid-Pennsylvania area that perform an annual concert.
The Bellefonte Community Band is a group of about 50 volunteer musicians of all ages from Bellefonte and surrounding area. It has been performing for the citizens of Centre County for more than 30 years.
The band plays about a dozen outdoor concerts from late May through August, and can be seen at the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, Bellefonte Craft Fair, Talleyrand Park, and Grange Fair and retirement communities among other sites. It also performs an annual Christmas concert as part of the Bellefonte Victorian Christmas celebration.
Editor’s note: Sam Stitzer is a member of the Bellefonte Community Band.
