The Summit City’s best kept entertainment secret, Fort Wayne Area Community Band, turns 40 in November.
It all started when the late Dr. William Schlacks, assistant professor and director of instrumental music at IPFW, placed a two-column by two-inch release in The News-Sentinel inviting area musicians to dig out their instruments from under beds and deep in closets and join a community band. Thirty-five musicians showed up for the first rehearsal November 29, 1979 in the Neff Hall Auditorium. Since then the band has grown to more than 90 members.
Many of those who showed up for that first rehearsal hadn’t touched their instruments since they were in high school or college. There were a few high school band directors in the group, a couple of professional musicians, several music teachers and some whom had been playing in small combos or in church. The initial practice was a bit rough, but Dr. Schlacks saw promise and challenged them with difficult compositions.
Over the years the band performed concerts in neighborhood parks, surrounding communities, local university and college graduation ceremonies and even entered a raft in the annual Three Rivers Raft Race with about a dozen musicians providing music for the rafters.
For the first seven years, the Band performed its concerts in Neff Hall before moving to the Performing Arts Center for four years. The Scottish Rite Auditorium was its concert venue for the next 12 years, followed by eight years at the Embassy Theater. Its concerts have been performed in Rhinehart Music Center for the past six years.
Its initial concert of this season will be held in the Auer Auditorium at the John & Ruth Rhinehart Music Center on the Purdue Fort Wayne campus Tuesday, October 22. The concert will include a few new works, but most of the music is being drawn from the first two concerts performed by the ensemble in 1980.
Opening the program (theme is “The Beat Goes On, 40 Years and Counting”) will be a piece written by Earl Yowell who at that time was a graduate assistant at IPFW working on his Master’s Degree. It’s simply called Phanfaire and starts with a brisk drum cadence before the rest of the band enters. Members of the audience will be surprised when it morphs directly into a version of the Star Spangled Banner arranged for the U.S Army Band by Community Band member/trombonist Richard Hickman.
Included on the program will be the very quick Spanish march Amparito Roca, two John Philip Sousa Marches (El Capitan and The Thunderer), selections from Man of LaMancha and Overture in B Flat. Concert goers will also hear Grand Canyon Fanfare, Variations on a Korean Folk Song, Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral and William Byrd Suite. Contemporary works include The Beltway Breakdown and Hung Aloft the Night.
Over the four decades the Band has had seven conductors, six of whom were on the music faculty at IPFW. In fact, part of their job was to conduct the Community Band. Founder Dr. Schlacks directed for eight years and was followed by Dr. George Cavanagh who retired after 12 years. Present conductor, Dr. Scott Humphries, head of instrumental music at Manchester University, took over leadership of the band in 2011. He’s the only non-staff person to conduct the Band.
Susan Jehl, band director at Summit Middle School, joined the Band in 1980 and has been an associate conductor since 1982. David Blackwell joined in 1986 and has been an associate conductor since 1992.
The Band, which rehearses every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in the practice room in the Rhinehart Music Center, is open to anyone who is no longer in high school. Try-outs are not required.
Fort Wayne Area Community Band will launch its 40th anniversary with a concert Tuesday, October 22 in the John & Ruth Rhinehart Music Center on the Purdue Fort Wayne campus. Downbeat is 7:30 p.m.
