Orcas Island Community Band’s free concert coming up

“All The World’s A Stage!” is the theme of the Orcas Island Community Band’s free concert at Orcas Center on June 7 at 7:30 p.m.

“All The World’s A Stage!” is the theme of the Orcas Island Community Band’s free concert at Orcas Center on June 7 at 7:30 p.m.

The band’s two conductors have chosen different but complementary musical offerings. Jim Shaffer-Bauck’s classically oriented selections cover a wide span of geography and time.  The earliest is “La Gazza Ladra,” composed by Rossini in 1817 for an opera of the same name. From Rossini’s Italy, the band goes to Mussorgsky’s Russia of 1874 for selections from “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

“French Festival,” arranged by Glenn Osser, melds two mid-20th century pieces about French locales, Domino and Pigalle. American Leroy Anderson’s character piece “The Waltzing Cat” returns to the Community Band’s program as a perennial favorite. Rounding out the first half is “Concierto de Aranjuez,” by Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo.

Karen Key Speck brings Broadway and the cinema to the second half of the concert. A medley of favorites from “The Wizard of Oz” ushers the band and the audience down the Yellow Brick Road. The band played this piece at the Seaview Theater’s grand reopening to celebrate the movie’s 75th anniversary.

Inspirational favorite “The Impossible Dream” comes from “Man of La Mancha.” The band goes to the wild west with iconic “(Ghost) Riders in the Sky:  A Cowboy Legend.”  Karen’s program includes “April Showers,” a song about getting through rainy days and hard times to reach the eventual rainbows and flowers. The band will play its unofficial theme, “The Footlifter” by Henry Fillmore. The concert ends with the “March from 1941.”