The KING BAND has concluded the 2014 SUMMER SEASON,
so the winter season is coming February 22.
The Karl L. King Municipal Band of Fort Dodge, IA will open their
2015 indoor season on Sunday, February 22, with a concert beginning at
3:30 p.m. in the Decker Auditorium at Iowa Central Community College in
Fort Dodge. There is no admission charge, with these concerts
being provided by the City of Fort Dodge. Jerrold P. Jimmerson is
the conductor of the Karl King Band, with Dr. David Klee serving as assistant
conductor. Paul Bloomquist will serve as announcer for this concert.
This February Concert always recognizes the music of the band’s
namesake, Karl L. King, in celebration of his birth on February 21, 1891.
The music to be performed reflects a variety of King’s musical styles and
tastes, and was influenced by his career as a circus musician.
When Karl King arrived in Fort Dodge in the fall of 1920 with his wife
Ruth and young son Karl, Jr., he was already a well-established performer,
conductor, composer, and publisher of band music. He continued
to write music along with directing the local Municipal Band for 50 years,
and eventually opened his own music store and publishing business here.
Conductor Jimmerson has drawn music for this concert from several
of the compositions published 100 years ago in 1915, when Karl King was
a 24-year old young man. He had traveled for four years, from
1910 through 1913, with different circuses and had already reached the
peak of his playing career as a Euphonium player with the Barnum and Bailey
Circus Band, the top job of that era. The 1914 season found
Mr. King being named bandleader on the Sells-Floto Buffalo Bill Combined
Shows, a position he would hold through the 1915 and 1916 seasons as well.
Thus began his lasting friendship with Col. William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody.
Selections to be performed from 1915 include the overture, “Prince
Charming”; an intermezzo, “Arabian Nights”; a lively galop, “Walsenberg”;
along with music written by Mr. King for the actual Buffalo Bill Wild West
Show, featuring the second movement of his Western Suite, “On The Warpath”.
Opening the concert will be Karl King’s best-known composition, “Barnum
and Bailey’s Favorite March”. Additional selections on the first
portion of the concert include “Sweeney’s Cavalcade March” by W. Paris
Chambers; and a ragtime selection, “Buffalo Bill’s Centennial”.
The second half of this one-hour concert will be a musical time capsule
of 1945, commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
On February 23, 1945, a brave group of five U.S. Marines and one Navy corpsman
raised a flag on the island of Iwo Jima. Three months later,
the day after the Allies formally accepted Nazi Germany’s surrender – Victory
in Europe Day – that same flag was raised over the U.S. Capitol in Washington
D.C.
Opening this portion of the concert will be Aaron Copland’s dramatic
“Fanfare for the Common Man”, followed by “Midway March”, composed by John
Williams for the movie 1941. The King Band will continue their
musical tribute with “Themes from Victory at Sea”, written by Richard Rodgers
for the documentary television series; followed by “Highlights from South
Pacific”, one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most popular Broadway musicals.
Closing this historic concert will be John Philip Sousa’s march,
“Semper Fidelis”, the official march of the U.S. Marine Corps, followed
by the playing of our National Anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”.
In case of inclement weather, the concert may be cancelled.
The next performance by the Karl L. King Municipal Band will be the annual
Irish Concert on Sunday, March 15 in Decker Auditorium. |
