First winter concert for Marquette City Band

Expansion is in the works for the Marquette City Band. It’s been around since 1887, but it’s usually a summer-only ensemble. However, it’ll now offer winter and spring concerts as well.

High school and college students and adults in the area are all members of the Marquette City Band. A recent grant from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs has allowed the community band to expand, purchase new music and equipment, and add two new upcoming concerts.

“Last fall, as the Board of Directors, we began to do some master planning for the years ahead,” Marquette City Band board of directors president Ben Bohnsack said. “As we put our wish list in place, this was at the top of the list and we said, ‘let’s do it. Let’s do it now’.”

“We’ve got Sousa marches; we’ve got transcriptions by Rossini, who was an opera composer,” conductor Steve Grugin said. “We’ve got original band music; one of the pieces we are playing was written for the Concord, New Hampshire community band. It’s pretty unusual for a piece to be written, commissioned, for a community band, but we have one.”

The winter concert is scheduled for this Sunday at 3:00 p.m. at NMU’s Reynolds Recital Hall. All of the band’s concerts are free of charge and open to the public.