Penn Staters To Play Downtown Band Concert Thursday

A seasonal concert band will offer a free, hourlong performance Thursday evening in State College’s Sidney Friedman Park, formerly Central Parklet.

The all-volunteer Penn State Summer Concert Band, established last year by graduate student Avi Mehta, is scheduled to begin its program at 7 p.m. Musical selections will be largely classical with some marches and folk tunes mixed in, Mehta said.

About 50 Penn State students, alumni and employees play in the band. They rehearsed for the past six weeks to prepare for three performances this week, the culmination of their season.

The Friedman Park show today will be their final concert for the season. Earlier performances this week were held at outside Pattee Library and at the Foxdale Village retirement community.

‘Our mission was to do a little community service and do something outside the campus, do something for the community,’ said Mehta, who hails from Troy, Mich., and is the band director.

A conducting major, he did his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, he was introduced to a summertime concert band that served the community, Mehta said.

He decided to launch a similar effort when he came to Penn State, where he teaches conducting and is a Blue Band staff member. He said the summertime concert band here, in its second season, is still in an experimental phase.

It’s open to local residents who aren’t affiliated with the university, as well.

‘As the years go by, I hope to keep exploring, keep expanding and kind of form a more concrete mission as a group,’ Mehta said.