Oak Ridge Community Band Labor Day Concert set for Sunday night

Oak Ridge Community Band members are looking forward to performing their Labor Day concert this Sunday at 7 p.m. in A.K. Bissell Park. This is a free event, and the public is encouraged to bring chairs or blankets for outdoor seating.

Razzleberry’s Ice Cream Lab will be present to provide refreshments. Please note this concert, which in previous years has been held on Labor Day, will be performed on the Sunday evening before Labor Day.

One of several planned highlights at Sunday’s concert will be Audrey Stelson, flute section leader, who will be retiring after having spent an amazing 57 years with the Community Band. She will be playing a piece that composer Cecil Karrick wrote for her called “Piccolomania.”

Stelson grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and began playing the flute and piccolo in the seventh grade and continued through high school and college. After moving to Oak Ridge in 1963, she joined the Oak Ridge Symphony and in 1966 she joined the Community Band when Steve “Doc” Combs reorganized what had been the Municipal Band into the Community Band to perform for Oak Ridge’s 25th anniversary in 1967. At that time, the outdoor concerts were held on a small band shell in A.K. Bissell Park, but by the early 1990s the Arts Council of Oak Ridge, with Stelson as president, began a fundraiser for a new and larger outdoor performing pavilion. That pavilion was built in time to celebrate Oak Ridge’s 50th anniversary in 1992. She was also instrumental in raising funds to install an orchestra pit in the Oak Ridge High School Performing Arts Center. Stelson says that her many years in the Community Band have created fond memories and friends she will never forget.

Sunday’s concert will also feature the Dixieland Band’s performance of “At a Dixieland Jazz Funeral” and the clarinet section playing the fast-paced “Clarinet Candy.” In addition, the audience will enjoy hearing the band play “Henry Mancini at the Oscars,” “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” “April Polka,” “A Galop to End All Galops,” “Irish Tune from County Derry,” and the much beloved “Tennessee Salute” featuring several popular Tennessee songs and ending with “Rocky Top.” The encore number will be Sousa’s “Washington Post.”

Another event coming up soon for the Community Band in September will be a Fall Showcase concert with a number of ensembles currently rehearsing a variety of musical selections. The public is encouraged to mark Sept. 17, 3:30 p.m., First Baptist Church, on your calendar for this performance.

For more information, check the band’s website at www.orcb.org and keep up with current band news on facebook at www.facebook.com/OakRidgeCommunityBand.