PORT ANGELES — From Henry Mancini’s “Pink Panther” and Louis Prima’s “Sing Sing Sing” to marches from John Philip Sousa, the Dallas Brass delivers.
That’s the word from Doug Gailey, director of bands at Port Angeles High School and the host of a Dallas Brass visit this Sunday.
“They rock this place,” said Gailey, who brought the globe-trotting quintet to town in March 2010.
He’s invited the band back not only for a concert but also for clinics with his teenage musicians.
Workshops — with local high school and Stevens Middle School players — at 9:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m., noon and 1:30 p.m. will lead up to the public concert at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Port Angeles High School Performing Arts Center, 304 E. Park Ave.
Tickets range from $10 to $15, with proceeds to benefit Port Angeles High’s band program.
The 130-student program will send its players to perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in April, so fundraising is well under way.
Hiring the Dallas Brass is a risk, Gailey acknowledged. The ensemble required a $7,500 fee, regardless of ticket sales.
Yet Gailey believes this outfit is worth it, for the members’ music and their enthusiastic, if brief, mentorship.
“Not all professional players are good with kids,” said Gailey, who is in his 23rd year at Port Angeles High School.
But with the Dallas Brass three years ago, “I was thrilled. They were generous with their time. And they really shared their passion for music.”
This will be one of only two Dallas Brass shows in Washington state this season, Gailey added.
“They’re all over the place,” agreed Barbara Skrebutenas, the outfit’s Connecticut-based concert coordinator.
The band originated in Texas 30 years ago, and has since been across Europe and Asia and the Americas, with music drawn from the big band era, the movies, Broadway and the patriotic canon.
The Dallas Brass show is “An American musical journey,” which takes the listener from George Washington’s time to the present, Skrebutenas added.
Port Angeles High School band members will join the Dallas Brass on stage for “American Tableau,” a patriotic medley created by Michael Levine, the band’s founding director and trombonist.
The Dallas Brass also includes trumpeters Luis Miguel Araya from Alajuela, Costa Rica and D.J. Barraclough from Utah; tuba player Paul Carlson from Macomb, Ill.; percussionist Ryan Burd from Hilton Head, S.C., and alto horn-flugelhorn man Juan Berrios from Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
“We had a lot of people after the first concert [in 2010] who said, ‘You have to bring them back,’” band booster club president Mark Urnes noted.
It wasn’t until now that their itinerary brought the ensemble back to the Pacific Northwest.
Gailey is already fired up about taking his young musicians to the Lincoln Memorial come spring.
Every four years the band travels, just as the Port Angeles High School Orchestra does, he said.
The Roughrider Orchestra and director Ron Jones went to New York City’s Carnegie Hall this past March; Gailey’s concert band will make the trip east almost exactly one year later, on April 1, 2014.
“We do it on alternating years so we’re not fundraising the community to death,” Gailey said.
“I’ve taken kids to lots of places, including Beijing, China. But in the United States, Washington, D.C., is by far my favorite.
“It’s educational Disneyland for the kids,” with its Smithsonian museums, Library of Congress, Ford’s Theater — and the view of the Washington Monument and Capitol dome from where the band stands below Lincoln’s enormous figure.
“All of that is so powerful,” Gailey said.
Tickets to Sunday’s Dallas Brass benefit concert are available in Port Angeles at Port Book and News, 104 E. First St., and Strait Music, 1015 E. First St.; in Sequim at Pacific Mist Books, 121 W. Washington St.; and at Crossroads Music, 2100 Lawrence St. in Port Townsend.
Remaining tickets will be sold at the door of the high school’s 1,100-seat auditorium.
For more information, phone 360-452-7602.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
