Stockton Concert Band

S.J. band headed to Carnegie Hall

Ian Hill
Record Staff Writer

The Delta Winds is one of two showcase bands performing Wednesday at the hall as part of the New York Wind Band Festival. Local residents can hear the ensemble’s Carnegie Hall program during a send-off concert Saturday at San Joaquin Delta College’s Atherton Auditorium.

It will be the Delta Winds’ only local performance and include the premiere of “Fanfare” by Stockton composer Max Simoncic. The band was assembled expressly for the New York trip.

Playing Carnegie Hall “will be a life-changing experience, something you never forget,” said Bob Gross, 64, Delta Winds French horn player and Lodi Community Band conductor. “It’s the chance of a lifetime.”

It also can be intimidating.

“I’ve had a few sleepless nights,” said Delta College band director Art Holton III, 56, who organized and conducts the Delta Winds. “We’ve got to be really good.”

Holton said he was invited by festival organizers to bring a band to the event. He then discussed forming the Delta Winds with the Stockton Concert Band, which he also conducts, as well as the Lodi Community Band.

Members of the two groups include college students and local high school music teachers, who recruited some of their pupils. High school students were required to audition to join the band.

“Delta’s a community college,” Holton said. “Delta should be here to do community-wide activities, not just Delta activities. This is a golden opportunity. Why not open it up to lots of folks?”

Festival coordinator Dana Luikart said the Delta Winds can show festival audiences how teen and adult musicians can perform together. High school bands from Tennessee, Virginia, Florida and New York also will attend the festival, he said.

“The best part of (being a Delta Winds member) is performing with young people,” said clarinet player Ray Lippert, 72, of Acampo. “It takes me back to when I was young.”

It’s not the first time a Stockton-area group has performed at Carnegie Hall. Holton said he took the venue’s stage with the Stockton Chorale about two decades ago.

Delta Winds member Amelia Towle, 19, of Stockton played Carnegie Hall last year with the Central Valley Youth Symphony. A bass clarinet player, Towle came back with a souvenir T-shirt that reads “Ask me about my debut at Carnegie Hall.”

“It was really cool,” she said. “The sound is incredible.”

Contact reporter Ian Hill at (209) 943-8571 or ihill@recordnet.com.

Lodi Community Band prepped for N.Y. gig at renowned Carnegie Hall

Last updated: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 7:08 AM PDT

Members of the Lodi Community Band will travel to New York City for a rare opportunity to perform at the prestigious Carnegie Hall next week.

Dubbed the “Delta Winds,” the band is a 110-piece symphonic ensemble comprised of four groups from Lodi and Stockton. It was chosen to perform on the Ron Perelman Stage in the Isaac Stern Auditorium as one of 10 performances being held at the New York Wind Band Festival.

Led by San Joaquin Delta College’s band director Arthur Holton, Delta Winds includes members of the Lodi Community Band, Stockton Concert Band, Delta College Band, Brentwood Band and students from Lodi and Stockton high schools.

The 110 musicians will give a one-hour performance Wednesday night in New York City, and Holton said he plans to take advantage of every second. They will perform 10 pieces of music, starting with the world premier of “Fan Fair” that has been specially composed by local composer Max Simoncic.

Holton will lead the group in the main act, “Four Scottish Dances.”

“It’s one of my favorite pieces and you only get to play (Carnegie) once,” Holton said.

For Lodi lawyer and flutist Janie Hickok Siess, playing at Carnegie Hall is the equivalent to taking a case all the way to the Supreme Court.

“Carnegie Hall is the Holy Grail of music. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for most” she said. “It’s an honor just to step foot on stage.”

Like her fellow band members, Hickok Siess said she has plans for the rest of her week in New York. When they are not making stops at Ground Zero, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, Hickok Siess will make it a girl’s trip and see Broadway’s “Jersey Boys” and “Mary Poppins” with her former college roommate.

The cost of the trip for most musicians is about $1,800, Holton said. Each band member did their own fund-raising and have succeeded without help from the college.

The group will leave Sunday and return the following Thursday.

Contact reporter Lauren Nelson at laurenn@lodinews.com.

This week, I am thankful for an opportunity that I have been given: On March 25, 2007, just over one month from today, the Delta Winds (a conglomeration of members of the Stockton Concert Band, Lodi Community Band, Brentwood Community Band, and some very talented local high school students) leaves for New York City to perform at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday, March 28, 2007! (Check out the iPod in the right sidebar featuring clips from past Stockton Concert Band concerts, or watch the clips of our performances in Hawaii in June 2005 on You Tube.)

I can’t quite believe that this will be (approximately) my view of the world for the brief time that I will spend there rehearsing and performing:

In Friday’s Feast this past week, one of the questions was, “What is something that has happened to you that you would consider a miracle?” My answer began with: “I could literally write a book about all the miraculous things that have happened in my life. I keep saying “I couldn’t make this stuff up” because it seems to me that my whole life has been a series of miraculous twists and turns amounting to a journey that is never dull.”

This upcoming trip and performance is another one of those miracles. Although I have been a musician for virtually my whole life, I have only been a flutist for three years. And in that short period of time, to be given a chance to play in one of the best concert halls in the world with a really fine group of musicians is nothing short of a miracle.

Have you ever had a momentous event in your life for which you spent a great deal of time planning, dreaming, preparing and anticipating? This is such an event and when opportunities like this present themselves, it is not unusual for people to say things like, “It is too much. I can’t take it all in. I can’t process it yet. I think about it and it doesn’t seem real.”

So it is in this case. Even while I sit here looking at those photos of the auditorium and type the words “I will be sitting on that stage playing my flute,” it just doesn’t seem real. In fact, if I think about it for too long, I get a knot in my stomach that is only rivaled by the one I experienced as I sat in the courtroom of the California Supreme Court with one whole section of the courtroom seating cordoned off for the media, most of whom were staring at my legal opponents and I, waiting for the justices to enter and oral argument to begin. I certainly hope that I don’t get the case of “dry mouth” I had that morning. I remember thinking, “I’m not going to be able to speak. My tongue won’t work.” But, of course, I did and, in fact, once I began, I actually enjoyed myself.

So I know that once I put my flute’s mouthpiece up to my lips and begin playing, I am going to experience a musical pinnacle the likes of which most musicians who, like me, earn their daily bread doing something other than performing, only get to dream about.

So I most certainly have much to be thankful for this day.

And now, I must sign off, get out my flute and practice because I have a rehearsal with my duet partner at one, followed by another with my wonderful fellow Carnegie Hall-bound flutists at 3:00 p.m.

Soli deo gloria!*

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