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REVIEW: CR Municipal Band soars with the Harmony Hawks

By Dawn Stephens

The Cedar Rapids Municipal Band played its first concert in Bever Park in 1951. More than a thousand performances later, the band is still going strong.

On Sunday night my family and I attended the CRMB’s free outdoor concert at Bever Park and were treated to flourishing woodwinds, regal French horns and a highly entertaining program.

The band is mostly made up of professional musicians and college students from throughout the Corridor. The band’s weekly schedule for the summer: rehearse Monday night, perform a concert Wednesday night and play another concert Sunday night in a different location—though the performances typically sound as if hours and hours of rehearsal time had been invested.

This week’s guest conductor, Casey Thomas, chose music that was demanding for the musicians and rewarding for the audience. Sunday’s concert consisted of a wide array of music, everything from a good old fashioned Sousa march (“El Capitan”) to a melancholy hymn (“Prospect,” a.k.a. “The Lone Wild Bird.”) Many of the selections showed off the technique and range of two of the band’s most impressive sections, the clarinets and the French horns.

The band opened with “Esprit de Corps,” an exciting fanfare complete with racing clarinet runs and glorious rips from the French horns. Other pieces included “Holiday for Horns” (Jack Jarrett), “Valdres” (Johannes Hanssen), “Victory at Sea” (Richard Rodgers), “Four Dances from West Side Story” (Leonard Bernstein) and “Symphonic Marches “(John Williams).

Wednesday’s concert included “School’s Out for Summer” by Alice Cooper, but was not included in Sunday’s lineup. Instead, a delightful performance by the Harmony Hawks, a barbershop chorus directed by John Hayden, was featured at the midway point of the concert. The Harmony Hawks performed a patriotic line-up that included Meredith Wilson’s “Iowa,” a humorous rendition of a song about our beloved state. The singers put on a crowd pleasing, first rate performance; their addition to an already strong program was welcome.

The CRMB is one of the Corridor’s hidden treasures and catching them in concert this summer is highly recommended.. Grab a friend or two or three…after all, the concerts are free.

For the performance schedule and locations, visit the Cedar Rapids Municipal Band web site.