The Community Band Takes Its Audience on a World Trip!

— from Moana Kutsche —

The Orcas Island Community Band

“All The World’s A Stage!” is the theme of the Orcas Island Community Band’s spring concert at Orcas Center on Saturday, June 7 at 7:30 p.m. The program features music from all over the world, from a Broadway show, the movies, an opera, and dance halls. The concert evokes a fabulous city’s rise and descent under the waves, a visit to a Russian art gallery, a thieving blackbird and a mischievous cat.

The band’s two conductors have chosen different but complementary musical offerings. Jim Shaffer-Bauck’s classically-oriented selections cover a wide span of geography and time. The earliest is “La Gazza Ladra,” composed by Rossini in 1817 for an opera of the same name. The cheeky attitude of the piece readily brings to mind a larcenous blackbird. Shaffer-Bauck arranged the lengthy score to better focus on immediately recognizable themes, some of which appeared in “The Lego Movie,” among other places.

From Rossini’s Italy, the band goes to Mussorgsky’s Russia of 1874 for selections from “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Each movement refers to a painting or drawing of such quintessentially Russian scenes as a ponderous oxcart, Baba Yaga’s Hut on fowls’ legs, and the Great Gate of Kiev.

Czech composer V.F. Safranek takes the audience to the mythical city of Atlantis, from its courtly beginnings to its watery end. The last movement of the 1914 suite sees some of the band members sway from side to side with the waves. “French Festival,” arranged by Glenn Osser, melds two mid-20th century pieces about French locales, Domino and Pigalle, a racy red light district of Paris. American Leroy Anderson’s character piece “The Waltzing Cat” returns to the Community Band’s program as a perennial favorite, with meows and a barking dog.

Rounding out the first half is “Concierto de Aranjuez,” by Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo. Originally written for guitar in 1939, it became famous in the 1996 film “Brassed Off.” Band member Pat Muffett plays the beautiful flugelhorn solo.

Karen Key Speck brings Broadway and the movies to the second half of the concert. In the process of selecting popular tunes with a variety of styles, tempos and playing difficulty, Karen realized that most of the pieces she had chosen for the band had movie connections.

A medley of favorites from “The Wizard of Oz” ushers the band and the audience down the Yellow Brick Road. The band played this piece at the Seaview Theater’s grand reopening to help celebrate the movie’s 75th anniversary. “It was fun to be up on that stage,” said Speck, “to take part in something that has meant so much to the community.”

Inspirational favorite “The Impossible Dream” comes from from “Man of La Mancha,” a 1965 Broadway musical and subsequent 1972 movie about Cervantes’s fanciful knight Don Quixote. The song been used in tv shows, movies, political rallies and as an anthem for the 1967 Red Sox and a British soccer team.

The band goes to the wild west with iconic “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend,” about ghost cowboys doomed to forever herd hellish cattle. Written in 1948, Stan Jones’s tune has been recorded by many artist including Frankie Laine, Peggy Lee, Dick Dale, Gene Autry, Johnny Cash and Burl Ives. It appeared in “Blues Brothers 2000” and several other films.

Karen’s program includes “April Showers,” a song about getting through rainy days and hard times to reach the eventual rainbows and flowers. It debuted in the 1921 musical “Bombo,” performed by Al Jolson. The musical faded into obscurity, but the song has become a popular standard.

It isn’t a band concert without marches! The band will play its unofficial theme, “The Footlifter” by Henry Fillmore. The concert ends with the rousing “March from ‘1941,’” a challenging favorite of most band members. From Steven Spielberg’s movie John Williams’s march is arguably more memorable than the Steven Spielberg comedy starring John Belushi, which was based on real state-side events before and during World War II.

Karen reflected on her roles as band member and co-conductor. “I love this band, I love the individuals. I feel that the band’s strength is that we’re a family.” She sees her shift to conducting as a new role in that family, which she treats with “great seriousness, responsibility and honor.”

The band welcomes the community to their free concert, and hopes that regular fans will bring someone new to the concert who hasn’t heard the band before.