New Horizons Band aims to please young and old fans with July 26 summer finale concert
I drew my inspiration for this column about New Horizons Band while sitting in my lawn chair on a beautiful Sunday evening listening to the Iowa City Community Band play for the crowd at North Market Square Park.
I counted 18 members of the ICCB who play, have played or have ties to New Horizons Band.
NHB returns home to the Senior Center to play its final summer concert at 2 p.m. July 26. Because of COVID-19 and the closure of the Center parking ramp, our nomadic band has practiced in a shelter at City Park, in the lodge at Terry Trueblood Recreation Area and for the past year in the gym at the Robert A. Lee Recreation Center. While we are grateful to Michelle Buhman at the Center for arranging all our homes away from home, no architecture or ambience compares with the elegance of the Old Post Office now known as The Center.
The Center fits our needs of space and time. In the fall we hope to return to sectional rehearsals for brass, winds and percussion led by University of Iowa students. The Center is the only facility having (pretty much) sound-proof rooms for simultaneous rehearsals.
Our concert July 26 will be conducted by past student conductor and now director of bands at Highland Secondary School, Andy McDonald, and ably assisted by NHB veteran conductor Jordan Flies. The musical selections have something to please everyone. A compilation of tunes from “The Fifties” arranged by Paul Jennings will have your mind playing “name that tune.”
For the younger set and Potterphiliacs, there are selections from “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” music by the great John Williams. We play Gershwin, beautiful ballads like Ashokan Farewell (the tune by Jay Ungar used by Ken Burns for “The Civil War”) and, of course, marches.
Sharing the stage with NHB for the finale will be members of Monday Night Live. This sibling band, led by Sam Kelly, meets Monday nights and is composed of folks who still have day jobs and some NHB members who simply can’t get enough band.
One of our favorite marches written expressly for Iowa City New Horizons Band by member Chuck Kreeb will be played in his honor. We mourn the recent passing of Kreeb, who was an incredible musician, composer and friend to many in our band.
He arranged many pieces for our band, ranging from Bach to Holst. Thank you, Chuck, for your musical legacy. You are missed.
Please join us in the assembly room at the Senior Center on July 26 to hear delightful music that will inspire and entertain. Then dust off that horn or clarinet that has been languishing in your closet since high school and come join us this fall.
Check out our website, www.iowacitynhb.org, for more information. The only requirement is that you be 50 or older, but we’ve never checked IDs.
Joyce Marner enjoys playing flute in New Horizons Band.
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: New Horizons Band aims to please young and old fans at July 26 concert
