Orcas Island Community Band wows them north of the border

Joe Babcock, onstage with the Orcas Island Community Band, greets the crowds at the Lander, British Columbia Bandfets. Photo courtesy of Scott Whiting

By Moana Kutsche

On Sunday, June 14, the Orcas Island Community Band traveled to Ladner, B.C., to perform at the Ladner Bandfest. The Delta Music Makers, who host the festival, invited Orcas to play after meeting Ken and Karen Speck and Pat Muffett, band members who visited the festival two years ago. Twenty all-volunteer community bands joined for two-day Fifth Annual Bandfest. This is the first year it’s been an international event, though – thanks to Orcas.

Conductor Joe Babcock and about thirty Orcas musicians lined up for the red-eye ferry Sunday morning, along with a few spouses and friends. The band played an impromptu concert aboard the ferry on the way to Anacortes. There, they climbed onto a chartered bus for the trip to Ladner, which is south of Vancouver near Delta and Tsawwassen.

The Ladner festival is held at a park that has two performance stages.  Each band plays for forty minutes, and the next band gets set up while the one before performs.  Bands bring their own instruments, with the exception of large drum sets, which the festival and local high schools provide.

The Orcas Band got to hear several other groups play both before and after they went on.  One of the earlier bands performed Elmer Bernstein’s theme from “The Magnificent Seven,” which was on Orcas’s play list as well.

Conductor Babcock reassured the Orcasians that repeats happen sometimes, so their job was to make the Orcas rendition “more memorable” — in this case, faster, punchier and even more fun to listen to. They succeeded enthusiastically, to the great applause of a couple of hundred audience members and musicians from the band that had played it first.

The Orcas program was received with enthusiasm. It showed a decidedly American flavor, including two Sousa marches and a Dixieland-style rendition of the hymn “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.” The band also played Everett Maxwell’s Mexican-style paso doble “Ojo de Aguila,” and selections from “An English Sea Song Suite” by Philip Sparke and “Third Suite” by Robert Jager.

The Ladner Bandfest is a very well-run event, full of friendly, warm, welcoming people.  The Community Band hopes to return next year, and several band leaders broached the idea of joint concerts with Orcas.  Each band received gift certificates from Ladner-area music stores to thank them for participating. In a generous gesture, Babcock donated Orcas’s certificates to the Delta, B.C., elementary music department.