Songs, American style

Monday’s Community Band Concert will feature Mayor Kelly Boyd conducting the opening number, “God Bless America.”

The concert will take place on the Festival of Arts grounds and will feature many well-known patriotic songs. All of us know of Boyd’s love of music in hosting so many favorite performing groups at his Marine Room.

“America’s Finest” features the songs “Anchors Aweigh” from the U.S. Navy and “Semper Paratus” from the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as songs from the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force. The saxophone section will be featured in “Rootbeer Rag” and the concert will end with John Phillip Sousa’s classic march, “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

Linda Hughes will sing “Cry Me A River” with the band, and concert master Gary Gould will solo in “Blue Skies.” Ed Peterson will be the band’s conductor, assisted by Pete Fournier and Bill Nicholls. The band’s fifes and drums will play a specialty number, there will be a medley of George M. Cohan’s all-American music and the band’s premier piece will be Morton Gould’s “American Salute.”

So get out your American flags, come to the Festival of Arts grounds at 5:30 p.m. on Monday and celebrate the American music we all love.

Long-time performing arts star Lona Ingwerson will be narrating the concert for her 10th year. The band now numbers 65 members, rehearses once a week on Tuesdays in the Laguna Beach High School band room, and has two swing-band subgoups, a flute ensemble and a woodwind quintet.

They’ve come a long way from their start-up band of eight people in 1999, and play 20 or more concerts a year including performances of the swing bands and flute ensemble.

Admission to the Festival of Arts grounds is free to residents of Laguna Beach. We hope to see you there. For more information, call Carol Reynolds at (949) 497-0986.

Winners of the Community Band scholarships of $1,000 each will also be presented at the concert. They are Dylan DelPizzo-Howell on string bass and Jovan Majano on marimba.

CAROL REYNOLDS is the co-founder of the Community Concert Band.