New Concert Band Results From Collaboration
This fall, the Ypsilanti Community Band will partner with WCC to provide a new opportunity for College students who are passionate about musical performance in the new Washtenaw Community Concert Band.
Through this collaboration, the 75-member Ypsilanti Community Band gains a ready source of new musicians and WCC students enjoy access to experienced performers and venues in which to showcase their talent.
“This new agreement revives a relationship WCC and YCB have had in the past,” said Bill Abernethy, dean of Humanities and Social Sciences. “The band currently performs three or four community concerts a year on campus. The College also is developing a two-credit course to introduce student musicians to the large concert band format. WCC students don’t have to take the course to participate in the band, but I’m sure they will find it helpful.”
The Ypsilanti Community Band will retain its identity and legal structure as a Michigan nonprofit, and will continue to rehearse and store equipment at Whitmore Lake High School. During the summer months the new concert band will perform in outdoor venues around the Ypsilanti area as it has previously, and its concerts will feature solo performances by band members and guest artists from Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan.
“Many of the best community bands in the country and in Michigan have a formal affiliation with their local-area community college,” said Jerry Robbins, the YCB’s conductor since 1998. “We are delighted to have the opportunity to work together with WCC in this way to create a new, larger, and better concert band.”
Joe Burke, the band’s president, said: “Over the years, as our band has grown, we have seen that our membership and our audience reflect and represent the entire Washtenaw County area. Our formal collaboration with Washtenaw Community College will allow us to find more musicians and to attract a wider audience. It will allow the College to offer its students musical opportunities without having to create a band from scratch. Most importantly, this partnership will provide the Washtenaw area with a world-class musical group that is accessible to the entire community. I cannot imagine a better ‘win-win-win’ situation.”
The Ypsilanti Community Band has been an Ypsilanti favorite since 1979, when then-Ypsilanti High School band director Lynn Cooper gathered together 23 friends and former students to create a community band. Robbins, the current conductor, describes the band’s programming as traditional concert band music. It includes rousing marches, patriotic music, orchestral transcriptions, show tunes, and fun novelty songs—the kind of music that appeals to the whole family. In addition to the full concert band, the YCB organization sponsors a town band that plays vintage music and a pep band for special events.
For more information on the new Washtenaw Community Concert Band, call 734-252-9221, email ypsicommband@gmail.com, or visit www.ypsicommband.org.