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LOCAL MUSICIANS PARTICIPATE in Vintage Brass each week at Long Beach Citadel. |
Vintage Brass, a creative outreach program to brass band enthusiasts (players as well as listeners) has completed its first year. Bandmaster Richard Upton, musical director and organizer of the group, and Captains Kyle and Martha Trimmer, Long Beach Citadel corps officers, have invited Long Beach, Los Angeles and Orange County residents to “come on down” and play or listen to vintage brass music, much of it from the Long Beach Citadel Band archives.
Bandmasters, conductors, composers—including Western Territorial Bandmaster James Anderson, Divisional Bandmaster Kevin Larsson, Bandmasters/Composers Ivor Bosanko, Bill Gordon, Keith Snell, and Captain Steve Smith—have provided stimulating leadership. Bruce Broughton, well-known motion picture composer, as well as composer of Salvation Army band music, directed the group in some of his compositions as well as numbers written by his grandfather, Bandmaster William Broughton.
Community music leaders Steve Fox, conductor of the Golden State Pops Orchestra, and John E. Hall, III, conductor of the Cypress Pops Orchestra, have also participated.
As a result of creative efforts to involve residents from local nursing and retirement homes, many activity directors of local residences have arranged to bring people to the rehearsals. They arrive in wheelchairs, some transported in vans, enjoy the music, and stay for refreshments.
Barbara Taft and her group of League of Mercy workers, Henry and Dorothy Brunner, Dr. Audrey Newman, Major Dorothy Brown, Helen World, Frances Rodriquez, Frankie Upton, Carl Taft and others have encouraged visitors to attend and given each a warm welcome. Lt. Colonel Sherryl Van Cleef, divisional leader, visited, prayed and welcomed attendees.
Several members of Vintage Brass, new to The Salvation Army, have attended worship services and played in the Long Beach Citadel Band on Sunday mornings. They came to worship and continue attending. Vintage Brass players provided holiday music around the Salvation Army Christmas kettle in front of a Target store in Long Beach; at a remembrance service held in Inglewood Cemetery, Vintage Brass provided appropriate music.