The Sequim City Band looks to transport its audience to Manhattan and its theater district — “The Great White Way” — with its June 9 concert, “Broadway Favorites.”
Under the direction of Tyler Benedict, the band will bring music made famous on Broadway at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 9, at the The James Center for Performing Arts, 506 N. Blake Ave., on the north end of Carrie Blake Community Park.
Hear medleys from “Beauty and the Beast,” “Chicago” and “South Pacific,” as well as “Defying Gravity” from “Wicked.”
On-site parking and concert are free to one-and-all. Attendees are encouraged to bring a lawn chair or blanket, pack a snack and find a spot on the lawn in front of the stage.
The band will pay musical tribute to Leonard Bernstein, one of the greatest composers and musical personalities of the 20th century with a colorful medley arranged by Clare Grundman. The tribute includes excerpts from “On the Town” (“The Great Lover,” “Times Square: 1944,” “Lonely Town”), “West Side Story” (“Prologue,” “Somewhere,” “Scherzo,” “Mambo”) and excerpts from the overture to “Candide.”
Bernstein was one of the first American-born conductors to receive worldwide fame, receiving his big break conducting the New York Philharmonic in 1943. He conducted the Philharmonic for more than 30 years and served as their musical director.
n 1949, he conducted the Boston Symphonic Orchestra in a televised concert on NBC celebrating the one-year anniversary of the United Nations’ ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; it would be the first of many televised concerts for Bernstein.
He expanded his influence by hosting informal concerts, which included Bernstein speaking to the audience directly from the stage, and by extending his television teaching with the Philharmonic’s weekly “Young People’s Concert” on CBS, which exposed millions of viewers around the world to classical music.
Get more information about the Sequim City Band can be found at sequimcityband.org or facebook.com/Sequim.City.Band.
