Casco Bay Concert Band

Reviews

Spotlight on the Casco Bay Concert Band

reprinted from The Portland Phoenix, February 9, 2007

by Ben Meikelejohn

In the shadow of symphony orchestras, community bands usually do with less fanfare (despite that bands play fanfares more frequently than orchestras).

The Casco Bay Concert Band, southern Maine’s premier community band since 1980, perform at Gorham High School, Sunday, February 11 at 3 pm, conducted by Peter Martin. The program includes Casco Bay Fanfare by Jack Stamp, a short energetic tribute dedicated to Maurice Lane, a lifelong musician, conductor and CBCB’s bass clarinetist until passing at age 94. Two British works are listed - Malcolm Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances and Stephen McNeff’s Ghosts, an entertaining nine-movement piece with an introduction (“The Haunting”), seven vignettes each characterizing a legendary ghost, and a final Chorale titled “the Ghosts are laid to rest...” Sharing the stage are the Dartmouth Wind Symphony with a “Blowing in the Wind” program theme, conducted by Max Culpepper.

CBCB has grown from 35 to 70 members in its 27 years, followed the cues of three conductors, and undertaken numerous community activities. They sponsor Music in Our Schools concerts with a school band (such as teh South Portland High School Band on march 19), and participate in “RB Hall Day” - an official state holiday on the last XSSaturday of June recognizing “Maine’s King of Marches” Robert Brown Hall (1858-1907). Community bands from ac ross the state gather for af ree nonstop day-long concert in his nhonor.

CBCB gives two scholarships per year - to a student who plays Music in Our Schools, and to one from Gorham High School, which hosts rehearsals and concerts. Pam Marshall, flutist since the first performance (alongside trombonists Jon Hall and Dick Merrill), says CBCB hopes to “show young people that music doesn’t end when school ends,” and that musical participation isn’t restricted to those who choose it as their occupation. A third of its members are music educators or performers; the remainder includes lawyers, teachers, retirees, homemakers, and several doctors concentrated in the brass section (and I’ll come clean: I recently joined as an oboist).

Martin notes that although “concert bands don’t have the visibility typical of orchestras, there are actually more” community bands than community orchestras in Maine. In greater Portland, the Westbrook City Band and Italian Heritage Center Band join the roster.

Marshall says the band performs “a better quality of music” - including more challenging works - under Martin’s direction. She has enjoyed the more difficult, contemporary, and lesser known works that Martin has chosen over the years. He picks “music for everyone to listen to,” says Marshall, to accommodate the wide range of ages in the audience and the band.

Music for the people, of the people, and by the people emerges from the shadows to take its place in the spotlight this Sunday. Orchestras step aside - it’s concert band time!

For those who simply must have vocals or strings, note and plan for the University of Southern Maine’s production of Die Fleidermaus by Richard Strauss on February 10, 14, and 17.

Now, to quote a friend or two, “Strike up the band.”

Concert Band Performs at Gorham High School

reprinted from American Journal, October 28, 1998

By Katherine Collins

The Casco Bay Concert Band, which was founded in South Portland over 20 years ago, moved to Gorham this summer and on Sunday held its first concert in the Gorham High School Auditorium. The band, under the direction of University of Southern Maine professor Dr. Peter Martin, called the concert "New Beginnings".

The concert was the first of the band's 1998-1999 season and if it is any indication, this season will be one well worth attending.

The band is made up of adults from all walks of life, "ages 18-92" as they like to say. The members rehearse once a week.

Many of them are music teachers, but other professions include lawyers, a museum curator, an archaeologist, and postal workers.

Members of the band also include Ray Mathieu, Gorham High School's band director, on trombone, Darrell Morrow, the high school's choral director, doing double duty on percussion and piano, and the American Journal's office manager Gloria McCullough, also on trombone.

The program featured two Maine premieres. One was the "Gloriosa", written by Japanese composer Yasuhide Ito, and the other was an untitled march by John Philip Sousa which had been lost for over 50 years.

The Japanese piece was haunting, joyful, and powerful, sometimes all at once. The first movement, entitled "Cantus", is a reflection of the fact that from 1603 to 1867 the Tokugawa Shogunate Japanese government banned Christianity so that many Christians hymns and chants were distorted and their original words changed.

The second movement, entitled "Dies Festus", is based in the traditional melody of a folksong called "Nagasaki Bura-Bura Bushi".

The Sousa march was vintage Sousa with drums pounding, trumpets blaring, and trombones sliding. It certainly was a rousing way to end the concert.

Standout pieces included the second movement of the "Sarabande and Polka", composed by Malcolm Arnold and arranged by John P. Sawyer, "Allegro non troppo", and the third and fourth movements of Jan Bach's "Praetorius Suite", "Gavotte and Volte", and "Canzona" by Peter Mennin.

The band's quality overall is outstanding, but the low brass and clarinet sections especially stood out.

The lead clarinet, Ray Libby, was not only fun to watch as he seemed to be having as much fun as the audience, but he is enormously talented and a joy to listen to.

Alicia Gamow, on Piccolo, also stood out as she preformed a solo in the "Gloriosa" piece.

The director, Martin, also conducts the Portland Youth Wind Ensemble. He is a native of Illinois with a Ph.D. in music from Northwestern University.

With an active conducting schedule, Martin has traveled to such places as Paris, France, Lugano, Italy, and Kurgarten, Austria, as well as to 30 states.

The associate conductor is Marisa Weinstein who came to Maine from Florida and who resides in Pittsfield. She holds degrees in music education and conducting from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Weinstein also leads the band's percussion section.

The only complaint the audience of about 100 had Sunday was that there was no encore.

The band's next concert will be during the Christmas season.