Family Fun / Arts & Leisure

Bettendorf band marks its 40th year

By David Burke | Wednesday, June 11, 2008 | () comments

(Photo by Elisa Petersen/Quad-City Times) George Nyquist plays the french horn with the Bettendorf Park Band at the kickoff of its 40th annual summer concert series. Because of the weather, the first show was moved indoors to the Herbert D. Goettsch Community Center. This is Nyquist’s 36th year with the band. Buy this Photo

One by one, with instrument cases and sheet music in hand, they hike up the steep staircase to the second floor of the Herbert D. Goettsch Community Center in Bettendorf.

For some of them, it continues a tradition that has gone on during Thursday nights for the past 40 years — rehearsals for a performance by the Bettendorf Park Band.

“I’m involved with Festival of Trees and a lot of other organizations, and I always tell them, ‘I’ll do anything you ask, but not on Thursday night,’ ” said Pat Wohlford of Bettendorf, who has played percussion with the group for all but the first year. “That’s the night that I can forget about all those other things and just play.”

The band celebrates its four decades this season with a traditional slate of 10 Friday night concerts in the Bill Bowe Memorial Bandshell at Veterans Memorial Park. (The concerts go on in case of inclement weather by simply moving to the community center.)

Anne Sinner of Bettendorf and her husband, Steve, are among the band’s handful of charter members. The couple met playing in their high school band. Here, she plays the clarinet and he the bass clarinet.

“It was very definitely a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants organization, but we built it up slowly over the years,” Anne Sinner said.

The group is all-volunteer, although director Jim Crowder and associate director Stephen Montgomery are paid.

The repertoire includes work by circus march composer Karl King, whose “Gateway March” opens each summer concert, and overtures from Broadway shows and movies — “kind of like a typical high school band would play in concert, a little bit of everything,” said clarinet player Steve Stoltenberg, a 35-year veteran.

Stoltenberg met his wife, Sandy, through the band. They are one of several matches made by the band, which includes numerous couples.

“There’s been a couple of other weddings out of this band,” Sinner said.

There also are several sets of parents and children in the group, whose numbers of 50 to 60 players are adjusted for snowbirds in the winter and returning college students in the summer. (The only requirement is that players at least be in high school. There are no auditions.)

“It’s something the parents and kids can do together,” Crowder said. “They’re not going to go out there and play football when they’re in their 60s.”

Crowder, who has directed the band for about half of its existence, formerly worked at organizing the Iowa all-state band, and he spent several years directing the U.S. Military Band at West Point, N.Y., in the 1960s.

He also directs a community band at Black Hawk College in Moline. Just since Crowder began directing the Bettendorf band, similar groups have popped up in Sherrard, Aledo and Orion, Ill.

“We’re seeing more instead of less. I think that’s healthy,” he said. “The only problem is some of our members play in two or three of them.

“It’s a nice problem to have.”

A typical concert will run for 90 minutes to two hours and include an intermission. Every concert includes an ice cream social, so “you can make an evening of it,” Stoltenberg said.

The largest concert of the year is the Fourth of July evening performance, which has drawn as many as 10,000 people, Crowder said.

Crowder said one element that makes the band, funded by the Bettendorf Park District, unique is its audience interaction. Each year, at the next-to-last concert of the summer, members of the crowd are asked to vote for their favorite songs. The top 10 comprise the program for the season finale.

That response has drawn national acclaim from a music publication.

“Whenever I hear somebody gripe about a piece, I say, ‘Careful, that might be in someone’s top 10,’ ” Crowder said with a laugh.

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.

IF YOU GO

What: Bettendorf Park Band

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 13 (concerts continue every Friday through Aug. 1)

Where: Bill Bowe Memorial Bandshell, Veterans Memorial Park, Bettendorf (In case of rain, concerts are moved to the Herbert D. Goettsch Community Center, 2204 Grant St.)

How much: Free, with donations accepted

Information: (563) 332-5190 or Geocities.com/BettParkBand on the Web