SEQUIM — The Sequim City Band will kick-start the transition to warmer months with a Sweet Suites concert at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Sequim High School auditorium.
The free concert will be at the auditorium on the high school campus at 601 N. Sequim Ave.
One feature will be “Second Suite in F,” a well-known concert band piece by Gustav Holst that was originally written for military bands. It illustrates the structure of a suite — an ordered series of instrumental dances, in the same or related keys, commonly preceded by a prelude — by including a march, ballad, rhythmic piece reminiscent of a blacksmith at work, and free-form music or fantasia.
From George Bizet’s “L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2,” the band will play an arrangement of a farandole, an open-chain community dance popular in Provence, France, that bears similarities to the gavotte, jig and tarantella.
“Waltz No. 2” by Dmitri Shostakovich is another example of a dance that was composed as part of a musical suite.
Solo trumpet music will be performed by Randy Stillwell, a band member who is returning from his current home in Australia to perform “Jimala Beguine” by James Burke, a cornet soloist with the Goldman Band. A beguine originated in Martinique and was a fusion of French ballroom dance music and African rhythms.
In modern pop music and movie culture, an equivalent of a classical musical suite is the compilations of songs by a particular vocal band or songs composed for a musical or movie soundtrack. The band will perform a compilation of Beatles music, including “Drive My Car,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Hey Jude” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
In addition to Australia, Canada will be represented. Clarinetists Edith Eaton, Don Mayer and Rhonda Smeds from Vancouver, B.C., will join the band for this afternoon concert.
The band also has a concert with the Port Angeles High School Wind Ensemble set for April 10. The evening concert will be performed at the Port Angeles Performing Arts Center, 304 East Park Ave.
For more information about the Sequim City Band, www.sequim cityband.org.
