The Music of Spring

The Band is busily preparing for its first concert of the New Year, the annual Spring Concert at Lancaster Mennonite High School on Sunday, March 8 at 2:00 PM.  You’ll not want to miss this performance as it features a host of soloists, a celebrated guest conductor, some old, some new, some borrowed, some red, white and blue works saturated with our favorite Sousa marches.

This year’s theme is Images, a term that describes the mental metaphors that spring to life upon hearing great music.  Those musical images will be enhanced by works of art created by the artists of Friendship Community.   Under the direction of Program Director, Tucker Yeaworth, Friendship artists have absorbed the music and studied its background.  On March 8, as you enter the concert hall, you will find yourself pleasantly surrounded by an imaginative and colorful display of art especially created to accompany and reflect our music.

The program will open with Franz von Suppe’s incomparable Light Cavalry Overture and followed with John Philip Sousa’s, The Belle of Chicago March.  Our first soloist of the afternoon, Mrs. Barbara Witmer, graduated from Garden Spot High School and accompanied the Band as soloist and as Miss New Holland in 1974 on the Band’s tour to France.  Barbara is a speech therapist with the National Institute for Learning Disabilities and a teacher at Delaware County Christian School.  Most recently, Barb has been called upon to sing the National Anthem at “Sixers” and  “Phillies” games.  The Band will accompany Barb on one of the truly popular classics of our day, Time to Say Goodbye.

With Mr. Robert Shaubach conducting, our Personnel Manager and Assistant Conductor, be prepared for an exhilarating rendition of Francisco Cavez’s, Tamboo followed by Sousa’s, Sound Off March .  Dr. Timothy Witmer, one of New Holland Band’s favorite sons with an assorted career of playing tuba (Philly POPS, the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, the Rittenhouse Brass Quintet, the Westminster Brass and  substitute with the Philadelphia Orchestra) and serving as Minister of Preaching at Crossroads Community Church in Upper Darby and Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Seminary, will perform Beelzebub Air Varie for tuba and band by A. Catozzi, a solo he performed with the Band under the Eiffel Tower on the 1974 tour.

The first half of the program will close with Philip Sparke’s commanding, Invictus, which was commissioned by and dedicated to the United States Army Ground Forces. In addition to our guest conductor and soloists, the Band will honor an outstanding member of the Lancaster community.  For now we will keep his name and occupation a secret but be advised that you will not want to miss this presentation as we are sure that his response and recollections from his unique career will be a delight to all.

Marche and Cortege from “The Queen of Sheba” by Charles Gounod followed by John Williams’s Three Symphonic Marches opens the second portion of the concert with CMSgt Richard J, Witmer, USAF(ret) on the podium as our guest conductor.  Sgt. Witmer is another of the Band’s favorite sons who has served with the US Air Force Band in Washington DC.  During his tenure, Chief Witmer conducted the USAF Band at concerts and ceremonies before heads-of-states from around the world and developed the Air Force Band International Conductor Exchange Program.

From Sousa’s The Gladiator March, we segue to the music of Richard Rodger’s, Carousel.  Soloists Sherry Breton and Jeffrey Wilber return to our stage in a tour de force performance of this wonderful Broadway musical from the mid 1940’s.

And of course no New Holland Band program would ever be complete without our own particular brand of patriotic music which will include Morton Gould’s, America, the Beautiful, and our National March, The Stars and Stripes Forever.

*     *     *
Join us on March 8 at 2:00 PM at Lancaster Mennonite High School (Rt. 30 east). Admission is $10.00.  This concert is usually sold out so you may want to acquire your tickets now by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope along with your check to: 
The New Holland Band, Inc, P.O. Box 345, New Holland, PA  17557
*     *     *

Do visit The heART of Friendship Gallery in downtown Ephrata at 39 East Main Street where you will fine art, cards, jewelry, crafts, sun catchers and various painted items, or find them on the web at www.FriendshipArt.net.  Our cooperative effort on March 8  represents an integration of the arts among people from every station in life who create to allow the fine arts to do what they do best, uplift and encourage the human spirit.