Let the Celebration Begin!

Our 4th of July celebration started a little bit early this year with the Montrose Community Band Concert the evening of Tuesday, June 30th. This time around we played patriotic faire.....lots of Sousa marches with some other pieces too! It was fun as we played outside, and though it was hot when we started out (at 7pm), it cooled off as the evening progressed. We served ice cream for a donation and people brought lawn chairs and picnic blankets, covering the lawn area behind the Montrose Pavilion....our regular venue. It was a fun evening!!

We played "The Armed Forces Salute"....a tribute to each branch of our military. The MC asked the people in the audience to stand when the band played the theme of the branch for which they had served. It was very emotional!! We played a patriotic sing-along that was fun and also "Black Canyon of the Gunnison", a beautiful piece written for the amazing National Park that is just 10 miles down the road from us. And the favorite piece of the evening (aside from all of the old, favorite marches!) was called "The HomeFront"....a medley of wonderful tunes that were popular during WWII! What fun that was...."Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", "Thanks for the Memories", "White Cliffs of Dover" and many others!! The Swing music is sooo much fun to play and listen to and people left humming those songs!!

Here are a couple of pictures.....
You can see me to the left side of Toby, our director, in this picture!




Here is the video that Dusty filmed at the end of the concert of the band playing, "Stars and Stripes". The quality isn't as good as the last video I posted, because we were outside and he was easily distracted! Hehehehe!! The girl that ran in front of the camera in the beginning is our niece, Katie! Then she came back towards the end and asked "Uncle Dusty" to dance!! He did, but never stopped filming....hence the swaying of the camera!! LOL He panned around so you can see the audience sitting on the lawn too. Please take note of the awesome piccolo playing by Monica! She always does a great job!! I hope you'll enjoy it!!