Canton Community Band honors roots with free public concerts

Canton’s longest-playing community band, the Canton Community Band, will honor its roots with a pair of free, public performances featuring music by New England composers.

The Canton Community Band performs throughout the year at concerts, parades, and other community programs.

The concerts, titled “Heritage of the Community Band,” will be held on Thursday, March 23, at the Canton Public Library and Thursday, April 6, at the Congregational Church of Mansfield. They will begin at 7 p.m. and continue for one hour. The public is invited. A discussion of the music and meet-and-greet with the band will follow each performance.

The Canton Community Band is conducted by Elizabeth Leehey, a professional clarinetist and musician. A graduate of the Boston Conservatory and a faculty member at the Concord Conservatory of Music, Leehey is widely known for her skills as a performer, teacher, and musical arranger. She has directed the CCB since 2016.

The upcoming concerts will feature many well-known pieces by New England artists, including Somewhere by Leonard Bernstein; You’re a Grand Old Flag and Yankee Doodle Boy by George M. Cohan; The Pops Polka by Arthur Fiedler; Stein Song by Rudy Vallee; The Commonwealth by R.B. Hall; Nearer My God to Thee by Lowell Mason; and America Victorious by E.E. Bagley. A brief history of each piece and its composer will be presented during the performances.

The concerts are sponsored in part by the Canton and Mansfield cultural councils, agencies that are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Founded in 1927, the Canton Community Band welcomes musicians of varying ages and abilities who want to enrich community life with live, musical performances. No auditions are required. The band rehearses every Thursday at First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Canton and performs throughout the year at concerts, parades, fairs, special events, and other community programs.

To become a band member or to find out more about the upcoming performances, visit www.cantonband.org, call manager Robert A. Brown at 508-951-1229, or email webmaster@cantonband.org.

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Posted by Canton Citizen on Mar 12 2017. Filed under News. Both comments and pings are currently closed.