Wheaton Municipal Band to play concert of Americana favorites on July 17

The Wheaton Municipal Band presents a concert of Americana favorites on Thursday, July 17 at 8:00 in Memorial Park, when guest conductor Loras Schissel takes the podium.

Loras Schissel, the senior musicologist at the Library of Congress, gives the downbeat to a program filled with audience favorites.  A conductor and composer who has traveled the world, Schissel is known as the world’s foremost Sousa scholar. Schissel appeared with the Wheaton Municipal Band in the 1992 American Experience documentary “If You Knew Sousa”. More recently, Schissel and John Philip Sousa IV (great-grandson of the composer) co-authored a book titled The Stars and Stripes Forever.  Schissel also is considered a leading authority on the music of Percy Aldridge Grainger, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitzky.

Two Schissel arrangements of Sousa marches lead the program, El Capitan and Stars and Stripes Forever.  In addition to other great marches, the program includes Von Suppe’s Das Pensionat, The Battle Cry of Freedom by George Root, America the Beautiful, God Bless America, The Armed Forces Medley and Star Spangled Spectacular.

This concert offers a rare opportunity to hear a world-class band, directed by a world-class conductor and hear unique arrangements of all-time American favorites. Don’t miss the Wheaton Municipal Band concert on Thursday, July 17 at 8:00 p.m. in Memorial Park in downtown Wheaton.  The concert is free.  www.wheatonmunicipalband.org.