PORT TOWNSEND — Stirring music ranging from Italian opera to ragtime will fill Chetzemoka Park during the Port Townsend Summer Band’s first outdoor concert this season at 3 p.m. Sunday.
The band will perform in the park at Jackson and Roosevelt streets.
Admission is always free to performances of the community band formed in 1993, although donations are accepted.
Some 40 members of the band will play George and Ira Gershwin’s “Strike Up the Band,” the “Unique Overture” by A. W. Hughes, the intermezzo from “Cavalleria Rusticanao,” an opera by Pietro Mascagni written in 1899, a Cole Porter medley, two marches by Franz Schubert, John Philip Souza’s “El Capitan” and Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”
Hymn by conductor
Among the selections will be “Variations on St. Anne,” an arrangement based on a hymn that conductor Karl Bach, now in his 14th year with the band, wrote several years ago; he can’t remember exactly when, perhaps in 2008.
This won’t be the band’s first performance of the year.
That was on Memorial Day, when band members performed at the American Legion hall at 209 Monroe St. to mark the holiday.
But this is the first outdoor concert of the summer, Bach said.
Band members are all volunteers who gather each Tuesday throughout the summer to practice for the community concerts and who provide music for holidays.
On the Fourth of July, the Summer Band will present its annual Independence Day concert at 7:30 p.m. at the American Legion hall.
A special concert of historic proportions is planned at 3 p.m. Sunday, July 27, at Chetzemoka Park.
This concert, organized in tandem with the Jefferson County Historical Society, will feature music that “relates directly to the community,” Bach said.
For instance, it will feature the “Key City Parade March,” written by Port Townsend resident Clyde Peach, and a souvenir program with photographs and historical information as well as musical program notes.
Other free public concerts scheduled this season are:
■ Saturday, Aug. 16 — 11 a.m., during the Uptown Fair on the Port Townsend Community Center lawn at Tyler and Lawrence streets.
■ Sunday, Aug. 24 — 3 p.m., John Pope Marine Park, Water and Monroe streets.
■ Sunday, Sept. 7 — 3 p.m., joint concert with the Sequim City Band, Chimacum Schools auditorium, 91 West Valley Road.
■ Tuesday, Nov. 11 — 10:30 a.m., Veterans Day concert, American Legion hall.
Band members
Members of the band must be able to play an instrument at the high school level, Bach said. There are no formal auditions.
“I’m looking for coronet and trumpet players,” Bach said, “even a flute player or oboe player I could use. And I could use maybe another drummer.”
Those interested can phone Bach at 360-344-3658
Summer concert rehearsals are at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the American Legion Hall through Aug. 19.
Special rehearsals for the Veterans Day concert will be at 7 p.m. Oct. 29 and Nov. 5 at the American Legion hall.
For more information about upcoming summer shows and more, visit www.ptsummerband.org.
