Letter from the Director Richard Boberg - August 30, 2005

Dear NCSB members,

Welcome back to the 2005-2006 season of NCSB. I heard many good reports of the summer concert series conducted by Terry, and extend congratulations to all for a job well done. My student’s parents loved Jeff’s tenor solo and Terry’s great sense of fun during the concerts.

We are planning to expand on the success of last year with a widely varied program of music that I believe will be pleasing to the audience and enjoyable for you to play. I am continuing to look for (and finding!) music that will be new and challenging to the band. This fall, we will perform a concert of music from Britain, including Holst’s Second Suite, Adam Gorb’s Over Hill and Dale, a newly composed Suite of English Folk Dances by Ernest Tomlinson, an archive march from historical British military band literature, Regimental Band (1912) and The Campbells, a Scottish quickstep. Of course, a concert of British Isles music would be incomplete without Percy Grainger, so we will put the woodwinds to the test with Molly on the Shore. A little frosting on the cake will be a medly of Music of McCartney and an encore march.

The December holiday concert will feature traditional Scandinavian tunes along with some lighter American holiday songs and perhaps some Alfred Reed. How about a little caroling with the band and the audience?

The March guest conductor concert will be firmed up shortly. We will announce the conductor and program in October.

Spring pops will be a classical pops concert once again, with music from The Mikado, Finlandia, and, hopefully, soprano soloist Debbie Benke from the Oregon Repertory Singers. She will perform a suite of her favorite Gershwin songs with the band, which I will arrange, and Ellington’s Come Sunday. Add to that Adam Gorb’s Yiddish Dances, and we have a program that I am sure will delight both the audience and the band.

I am planning a summer concert in the style of Sousa, featuring the Cubaland Suite, Gottschalk’s Night in the Tropics, Cousins, a cornet and euphonium duet, and a couple of rarely heard marches performed by the Sousa band.

I am always open to input on literature from the band. There is some flexibility in the programming after the first concert. Your suggestions are appreciated, and I will be happy to consider them.

This season gives us the opportunity for continued musical growth. Our expanding audience is evidence of our success. I look forward to seeing all of you on September 12^th.

Richard Boberg, conductor

North Coast Symphonic Band