Mail Tribune

Selections from "Carmen" to "Oklahoma" will highlight the Southern Oregon Concert Band’s spring concert, titled "Musical Gems for Band," scheduled for Tuesday evening at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater in Medford.

The concert, directed by Yair Strauss, feature soloists Angel McDonald, Harry Kannasto and Frank Brugman.

McDonald, a graduate of the Southern Oregon University Music Department and a saxophone instructor, has performed with the Ashland City Band, the Britt Festivals Orchestra and the Rogue Valley Symphony.

She is a founding member of the Siskiyou Saxophone Quartet, which performed at the World Saxophone Congress as well as international tours in Guanajuato, Mexico, and Chengdu, China.

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McDonald will perform Alfred Reed’s "Children’s Suite for Solo Alto Saxophone and Winds."

Reed enjoyed writing music for the concert band and composed more than 250 works for concert band, wind ensemble, orchestra, chorus and small music groups.

Trumpet player Kannasto was a music teacher for 34 years and performer for more than half a century. He played with the Ashland City Band for 55 years and is the founder/leader of the 17-piece band the Swing Kings.

He also plays with the Ashland Brass Quintet, the Rogue Valley Symphonic Band and the Rogue Valley Sauer Krauts German band. Kannasto will play the trumpet solo in Morton Gould’s "Pavanne."

Clarinetist Brugman, long active in Rogue Valley music circles, studied with Jerome Stowell of the Chicago Symphony. He has played with the Rogue Valley Symphony, the Ashland City Band, the Rogue Valley Symphonic Band and the Swing Kings.

Brugman will play the clarinet solo featured in Clive Richardson’s "Beachcomber."

The band will play a selection from Georges Bizet’s "Carmen" arranged by V.F. Safranek and an arrangement of tunes from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Oklahoma."

The band’s trombone section will play two works for trombone and band, Karl King’s "The Trombone King" and Henry Fillmore’s "Lassus Trombone." Fillmore, one of the most prolific contributors to band music, composed 250 pieces and arranged 750 others.

The Southern Oregon Concert Band will play "Rag," another selection by Reed, and reprise some old favorites under the baton of John Drysdale. Drysdale is director emeritus of the Southern Oregon Concert Band and former music teacher and curriculum director in Medford, Klamath Falls and Redmond. Drysdale will conduct "España Cañi" by Pascual Marquina Narro and "Americans We," another piece by Fillmore.

Strauss replaced Drysdale, who retired in 2005 after 15 years with the band. Strauss holds music degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and Indiana University. A conductor from 1971 to 1986, he led two youth symphonies in the San Francisco Bay Area and conducted the Oakland Ballet Orchestra, the Salem Symphony and the Rogue Valley Symphony.

The Southern Oregon Concert Band began in 1909 as the all-male, marching Hillah Temple Shrine Band made up of members of the Masonic Order. To attract more members to join the band, the Masons decided to change their band’s name to the Southern Oregon Men’s Band and include both Masons and other men.

Over the years the group has evolved into the Southern Oregon Concert Band, an all-volunteer community ensemble with both male and female musicians from the Rogue Valley.

The group’s members range in age from high school students to seniors and come from a variety of musical and professional backgrounds.

Admission is free, but donations will be accepted.

See socband.org on the Web.