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The Repasz Band to hold 2017 Spring Concert

The Repasz Band will present its 2017 Spring Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 9 at the Community Arts Center, 220 W. Fourth St.

Launching this stellar concert will be the Band’s performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Festive Overture,” transcribed by Donald Hunsberger. Composer Shostakovich worked at a time in Russian history wherein one’s own literal life or death was under the condition of whether party bosses liked your work or not.

Several friends of his “disappeared” under these conditions, never to be seen again. A sudden situation became a crisis when the leader of the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra was ordered to premiere a new work celebrating the October Revolution … at a concert in three days!

Shostakovich magnificently rose to the occasion with his “Festive Overture,” a piece of incredibly intense excitement, dynamic energy and incisively deft musical expression.

Widening the international flavors of this concert are Julie Giroux’s “Italian Rhapsody” and Franco Cesarini’s “Greek Folk Song Suite.” The former is like a happy musical tour of Italy and was commissioned by great Repasz Band friend, Colonel Arnald Gabriel, and dedicated to the honor and memory of his parents.

No Repasz Band concert would be complete without a fine representation of traditional marches and this one is no exception.

The band will present a march triumvirate tour de force of John Phillip Sousa’s Saber and Spurs, Julius Fucik’s “Florentiner March,” and, of course, the Band’s own signature march, “The Repasz Band,” by Lincoln and Sweeley.

Musical gravitas of devotion and contemplation will be provided for by Dan Forest’s arrangement of “The King Of Love My Shepherd Is,” and Claude T. Smith’s powerful take on The Navy Hymn, “Eternal Father, Strong To Save.”

Finally, lest anyone come away unfulfilled, works from the ministry of musical silliness includes Paul Yoder’s “Pachinko,” a musical trip to a Japanese pin ball arcade at peak hours and Rick Dejonge’s “A Toonful Tune,” a rampant distillation of cartoonic conventions that will make the listener recall the great cinematic cartoons of yesteryear.

Both of these works include virtual shooting galleries of special effects from the Band’s overworked and underpaid percussion section.

Musical direction for this year’s Spring Concert is provided by the Band’s luminous conducting squad of Mr. Albert J. Nacinovich, Mr. Jeffrey Dent, Ms. Jessica Lewis and Mr. Theo Lentz.

For more information about the Repasz Band, visit www.repaszband.org.

30Repasz

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