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OCTOBER 8, 2009 ISSUE

Watauga Community Band Performs at Rosen Concert Hall October 18

Raleigh Community Concert Band Also Scheduled To Perform

Story by Chelsea Baldwin

An aerial view of the Watauga Community Band on stage in Rosen Concert Hall. The band will perform in Rosen again on Sunday, October 18, at 3:00 p.m.

The Watauga Community Band will play alongside the Raleigh Community Concert Band on Sunday, October 18, at 3:00 p.m. in Rosen Concert Hall for a concert that is free and open to the public.

The concert will be the seventh time the band has put on a concert along with a guest band under the theme of “Entertaining Visitors to the High Country,” according to Bonnie Gordon, a tuba player and member of the band’s board.

Along with other local bands from North Carolina, the Watauga Community Band has entertained three bands from Europe—from England and Iceland. In 2001, the Aylesbury Community Band visited Boone after the Watauga band visited their hometown just north of London a few months before, added Gordon.

Ten pieces of music chosen by the different bands will be performed, including Broadway melodies, marches, traditional band arrangements and pieces featuring trumpet solos. They are tunes that are “sure to set your feet to tapping,” said Gordon.

The bands will perform under the direction of Bill Winkler, director of the Watauga Community Band, and the retired director of instrumental music at Watauga High School, where he worked for more than 20 years.

For more information about the performance, call Gordon at 828-297-1123.

The Watauga Community Band was founded in 1986 and is open to any community member able to furnish their own instrument; no auditions are required, although members are asked to make a time commitment.

Currently, members of the band have an age range of 75 years; the youngest member of the band is just 15 years old, and the oldest is 90. The band is open to people “who love music and want to share with others,” said Gordon. For more information about joining the band, contact President Steve Frank at 828-264-2411.