The Motor City Brass Band will be hitting town again this year with its Motor City Festival of Bands II this Sunday.
“The first Festival of Bands last year, it was great,” said Sally Lawton, public relations representative for MCBB. “People were just blown away by the sound, and it just was popular demand that brought the event again this year.”
Chris Felcyn, who deejays on weekday afternoons for WCRJ-FM, and who emceed last year's Festival of Bands, will return this year to again host the event at the Dearborn Ford Community and Performing Arts Center, 15801 Michigan Ave. Charles Greenwell will guest conduct two pieces with the combined bands.
The lineup for this year's March 13 event will include a cornet & trumpet ensemble under the direction of Conductor Rob Meier, the Farmington Community Band under the baton of Director Daimien Crutcher, the Oakland University Brass Band under the conducting of Director Kenneth Kroesche, the Plymouth Community Band under the guidance of Director Carol Battishill, the Washtenaw Community Concert Band under the baton of Dr. Jerry Robbins, well as the MCBB itself and its own Director Craig Strain.
Meier will begin the 3 p.m. concert in the Michael Guido Theatre with the fanfare of cornet and trumpet players from all five bands performing Gordon Jacob's “The Canterbury Flourish.” More 20-minute segments will be Crutcher leading Ron Nelson's “Homage to Perotin From Medieval Suite” and “Savannah River Holiday” and Frank Ticheli 's “Sanctuary;” Robbins leading Michael Brown's arrangement of the “Jersey Boys,” “Italian Rhapsody” by Julie Giroux, and “Great Gate of Kiev” written by Modest Mussorgsky from Pictures at an Exhibition; and Kroesche leading Peter Graham's “Summon the Dragon,” Edward Gregson's “Rococo Variations” and “Rolling Thunder.”
Other 20-minute segments will be Battishill leading Franz von Suppe's “Tantalusqualen Overture,” Frank Ticheli's “Amazing Grace,” John Philip Sousa's “Glory of the Yankee Navy” (and guest conductor John Gonthier leading the Plymouth band in “Towards the Western Horizon" by Philip Sparke); and Strain leading his arrangements of Paul Dukas' “Fanfare from La Peri" and of Leonard Bernstein's “Gee Officer Krupke,” and Phillip Sparke's “London Overture.”
Greenwell will lead the combined bands in performing Jaime Texidor's “Amparito Roca” (arranged by Strain to include mallet percussionists from all bands), and “The Pines of the Appian Way” from the The Pines of Rome by Ottorino Respighi. Greenwell is conducting assistant with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and is both conductor and music director of both the Southern Great Lakes Symphony Orchestra and the Birmingham-Bloomfield Symphony Orchestra.
“If people hear all those brass bands producing a big sound, it's going to be like a big party, that's the best way to put it,” Lawton said. “A big massed band closing is just a lot of fun.”
The MCBB is in its 15th season as a volunteer ensemble with some players having past professional experience, and according to Lawton, its musicians that are “quite skillful and talented.” Strain conducts rehearsals in Lamphere High School in Madison Heights, and all the band's subscription performances take place in Dearborn.
The MCBB's brass music is unique in being derived from the long tradition of the British brass band, Lawton said, though she emphasizes the band's repertoire does not usually include parade music-- “you would not expect a Sousa march, for example.
“Occasionally they will play that kind of music, but it's not generally the subject of their playing,” Lawton said.
Tickets purchased from the FCPAC Box Office are $15 ($12 for students and seniors), and they can also be purchased at the door. For more information on the concert, call the box office at (313) 943-2354.
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