Concert Celebrates A Gift Musicians Give Themselves

by Mitch Ridder The Laguna Community Band turns 10 and celebrates with a free 3 p.m. concert on Sunday at the Artists' Theater.

Sharing the stage with Juilliard-trained musicians and working professionals seems unfathomable to fledgling trumpeter Len Wood, who joined Laguna Community Concert Band after two years of intensive lessons.

Over the past three years, the retired owner of the Indian Territory gallery has grown increasingly fond of the welcoming ensemble. "I am quite blessed to play with these people and to learn from them," said Wood.

This Sunday, April 19, the Laguna Beach Community Concert Band marks its 10th anniversary in style with a 3 p.m. performance at the Artists' Theater with guest performers and a specially commissioned work created for the occasion.

"Laguna Beach is so fortunate to have this available," said Wood, who takes inspiration from the band's team of conductors, Ed Peterson, Bill Nicholls and Pete Fournier.

"It's a tremendously fun thing for all of us, an experience you're not able to replicate anywhere," said saxophonist and band president Brian Cameron, a former aerospace industry executive.

Audiences, too, will have the good fortune to hear "Sketches of Laguna," the work composed for the anniversary by Jim Christensen, a 40-year composer, arranger and conductor for Walt Disney Productions.

"I have an affinity for Laguna Beach and felt very honored to be asked to do this particular piece of music," said Christensen, whose musical composition is meant to invoke the town's early history.

The music will accompany a slide show of images honoring Laguna's many traditions, Christensen said.

The commissioned work is fairly challenging, said Cameron, by layering piano and flutes with the entire ensemble. "It's just a little tricky."

Sunday's concert features a range of music from Gershwin accompanied by vocalists Steve Josephson and Lisa Morrice as well as alto sax numbers and trumpet soloists playing "Carnival of Venice" among a variety of genres.

As the concert draws closer, Wood trudges his way across a familiar and nostalgic path to Laguna Beach High School, where the community band rehearses. The 1953 LBHS graduate played trumpet in school then, too, but remembers little from those lessons.

Sitting next to his son, Matt, who plays first trumpet, Wood is content with the third trumpet parts. Surrounded by family, whether blood related or not, they share an affinity for creating music that breathes oxygen into their life.

"We get so much out of it, 50 to 60 new friends, contacts and obligations," Wood said. "It's meant the world to me; it's a new experience, wonderful for your self-esteem, hitting new horizons."

By contrast, Carol Reynolds is synonymous with music in town, an integral part of the band's history. Lore has it that the concert band was envisioned over brewed java shared at the local hot spot, Zinc Café.

An established French horn player and music teacher, Reynolds teamed up with the original players in the summer of '98 in the dance studio at the recreation department," Reynolds said. "At the end of summer I joined and made eight."

Eventually, the group started rehearsing in the high school's band room. Performance groups, including a community chorus, and elementary music-tutoring program, flourished in recent years due to financial support for the arts through a hotel bed tax collected under a business improvement district. Last year, BID funds tallied $1.5 million, including $11,000 to the community band, according to the city budget.

"We really wouldn't be anywhere without the BID tax. So much has happened because of it," Reynolds said.

Reynolds stressed the breadth of band members, who professionally range from doctors to engineers. "We have no auditions; we used to take anybody that plays an instrument and then came and joined," Reynolds said. "Seventy-five percent are very experienced instrumentalists."

"Sketches of Laguna," a free concert, will be performed this Sunday, April 19, from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Artists' Theater, 625 Park Ave.