School Students, University Musicians to Share Stage for Three Bands Concert

Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3756

ORONO — Three bands, 150 musicians and four conductors will take the stage March 30 at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono for an annual event that draws public school musicians together in an upbeat performance with the University of Maine Concert Band.

The Three Bands Concert, hosted again by the University of Maine, is an annual fundraising event for Acadia Hospital and an opportunity this year for young musicians from Orono High School and the Reeds Brook Middle School in Hampden to share the stage with university Concert Band members.

This year’s concert, the eighth annual, features internationally known band conductor, prolific composer and clinician Robert Sheldon of Indiana.

Sheldon will work with the Orono and Hampden students at their respective schools and university musicians prior to the concert. He’ll conduct the UMaine Concert Band as it performs Sheldon’s composition, “Moravian Folk Rhapsody.” 

The concert format calls for each of the three bands to play short individual concerts, with each 20-minute performance to include one of Sheldon’s other compositions, in addition to traditional band music.

All three bands will assemble on stage for a grand finale, performing a march, “Trumpets and Drums” by James Barnes, according to Christopher White, UMaine’s director of sports bands.

The annual Three Bands Concert, which begins at 7:30 p.m., “is one of our biggest events,” White says.

“Our students look forward to it,” he says. “It’s good for college students to sit with the middle and high school students. And the middle school students get to sit with college students. It lets them know that playing in the UMaine band is a fun experience.”

The combined concert is an illustration of the University of Maine sharing resources and helping to enrich the cultural experiences of members of surrounding communities.

Sponsors for the concert and Sheldon’s visits to the schools include a variety of local businesses, a grant from UMaine Cultural Affairs, individual school fees and ticket sales. Concert tickets are $6 for adults and $3 for students with student identification cards and for people under age 17 and over 62. 

Acadia Hospital calls the concert “an evening of fine family entertainment.” The Bangor-based non-profit psychiatric and chemical dependency facility will apply money raised through the concert to promote its youth programs.

Last year, nearly 700 people attended, according to Alan Comeau, director of community relations and development at Acadia. “It’s an extremely well-attended show,” he says.

White says the area is fortunate to have someone of Sheldon’s caliber sharing his musical expertise with young musicians.

Sheldon is one of the most performed composers of wind band music today, according to the FJH Company, a national band music publication company in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Sheldon has received many awards from the American School Band Director’s Association, Phi Beta Mu and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

“His compositions embody a level of expression that resonates with ensembles and audiences alike,” the FJH website says. “His music is performed around the world and appears on many international concert and contest lists. Mr. Sheldon regularly accepts commissions for new works, and produces numerous publications for concert band each year.”

Sheldon is the conductor of the Prairie Wind Ensemble at Illinois Central College, but he maintains a rigorous year-round schedule serving as guest conductor for all-state and regional honor bands, and as a music education clinician at colleges and universities throughout the country and in Japan, Canada and The Republic of China. Sheldon also is concert band editor for the Alfred Publishing Company in Illinois.

White says performances of the three levels of musical performance groups will be a chance for youngsters in the audience, and adults, to see and hear the performance progressions of students of different ages and different skill levels.

He also hopes young people in the audience will like the music and decide to take up music lessons.

Aside from being entertaining and enjoyable, White says, music “is a way of expressing ourselves creatively. It also is a discipline. It teaches us how to develop skills, and that translates into other skills.

“Studies show students who participate in music tend to do better in other things,” he adds. “But, it’s nice to appreciate music. It’s nice to participate and it’s nice to make music come alive off the page.”

Without musicians, music would not be possible to hear, he says.

The UMaine concert band is composed of woodwinds, brass and percussion instruments. About 65 students from various academic fields are members. The Orono and Hampden bands have 50-70 members each, according to White.

The concert program includes a range of music from sprightly traditional marches and folks songs to more reflective, contemplative music.

“The styles of each of the pieces are very wide-ranging,” White says.

Tickets can be purchased online through the Acadia Hospital website — www.acadiahospital.org — at the door or by calling Eastern Maine Charities at (207) 973-5055.

Major event sponsors include: WVII-TV 7, Affiliated Healthcare Systems, Bangor Daily News, WZON/WKIT/WDME, Bangor Savings Bank, Georgia-Pacific, Oakhurst Dairy, Town & Country Realtors.

Other sponsors include: The Advertising Specialists, Bangor Letter Shop & Color Copy Center, Best Western Black Bear Inn, Best Western White House Inn, Brewer Automotive Components, Canteen Service Company, Creative Print Services, Curtis & Miller Law Office, Foster Imaging, Guinness & Porcelli’s, H.E. Sargent, Inc., Sargent & Sargent, Inc., Snowman Printing and Tapley Pools.