PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend Summer Band will inaugurate its 25th summer concert season with a special program at 3 p.m. Sunday for the final season for longtime conductor Karl Bach.
The free concert will be in Chetzemoka Park, 900 Jackson St.
The 35-piece concert band is conducted by Bach in his 17th and final season. An honored guest at this concert will be Port Townsend Mayor Deborah Stinson, who will make a special presentation to the band.
For this special concert, Bach has chosen a variety of music beginning with George and Ira Gershwin’s “Strike Up the Band.”
The program includes Otto Nicolai’s overture to his opera “The Merry Wives of Windsor”; Charles Borel-Clerc’s march “La Sorella”; Anton Weiss’ arrangement of “Golliwogg’s Cake Walk” by Claude Debussy; “Navy Bugler’s Band Call March” by Bach; “Children’s March” by Percy Aldridge Grainger; “A Sea Chantey Voyage” — a medley of sea chanties arranged by Bach; Leroy Anderson’s “The Syncopated Clock”; the hymn “Bless This House” by Mary Brahe; and finishing with “Jack Tar March” by John Philip Sousa.
The band’s next performance will be its annual Independence Day concert at 7:30 p.m. on the Fourth of July at the American Legion hall, corner of Monroe and Water streets in Port Townsend.
Featured on the July Fourth program will be music by Robert Russell Bennett, John Williams, Henry Fillmore, E.E. Bagley, Morton Gould, George M. Cohan and John Philip Sousa.
At 3 p.m. July 30, the band will continue its Chetzemoka Park concerts, and its final park concert of the summer will be at 3 p.m. Aug. 27.
As usual, the band will play at the Uptown Fair, beginning at 11 a.m. Aug. 19 on the lawn of the community center at Lawrence and Taylor streets.
All of the band’s concerts are free of charge, although donations are welcomed for helping to take care of the band’s expenses in preparation for its concerts.
For the band’s park concerts, guests are urged to bring chairs or blankets to sit on and picnic lunches.
More information about the band can be found on its website at www.ptsummer band.org and also can be obtained from Bach by calling 360-344-3658.
