A few donors dig deep and, voila! Concerts
| Wednesday, Jun 02 2010 09:00 AM
Last Updated Wednesday, Jun 02 2010 09:00 AM
'Music in the Park'
When: 8 p.m. Sunday
Where: Beale Park, Oleander Avenue and Palm Street
Admission: Free
Call: 323-7928
Concerts in the Park wouldn't be possible without ...
Rusty's Pizza, Jim Burke Ford, Eleanor Heiskell, Borton Petrini, Rabobank, TWIW Insurance Services, Peter Brown, Patrick Jennison, Le Beau Thelan, Mr. and Mrs. John White, Strategic Benefits and Margaret Baldwin
Thanks to Cyndi Hicks -- with a little help from her friends -- there will be music at Beale Park for the four Sundays in June.
"When I found out the city wasn't going to be able to (fund) it, I just started calling a few people I knew might help," said Hicks, who has coordinated the concerts the past few years. "I asked them for a couple of hundred bucks each; I thought that would be easier than asking for thousands."
Hicks led the way with a contribution from Rusty's Pizza, which she owns. Ultimately she gathered a total of $2,500, enough to pay four small groups of musicians along with the required payroll taxes.
"It really was nice of the folks who helped us out," she said. "I just wanted to keep it going."
All of the musicians are professionals, as is Hicks, a percussionist who is a member of the Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra and often leads a band for Stars Theatre Restaurant shows. However she won't be playing in any of the groups at the park. Her main job is taking care of the contracts.
Summer concerts in the park's amphitheater are, as Hicks said in a previous interview, "an old-timey thing you just don't want to go away." To my knowledge, no one has ever pinned down the actual starting date. Some suggest the series began in the 1920s or '30s.
For many years, the Bakersfield Municipal Band, the group's official name, was sponsored by the local Musicians Union Performance Trust Fund but that is no longer available. One of the longtime leaders was the late Ronald Moore, a Bakersfield High School teacher also known as "the colonel," not for his military background but for the discipline he instilled in members of the Driller Band.
Typically the final performance of the series is a salute to the Fourth of July, complete with a stirring rendition of John Philip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" and other patriotic tunes. But probably not this year, given the size and nature of the bands.
"Next year I hope we can have the full (40-member) concert band again," Hicks said.
The current schedule begins on Sunday with the Classicus Clarinet Choir, led by Mary Moore, followed by Bob Snyder's Southside Chicago Seven on June 13. On June 20 it will be Brass a la Carte, a group led by Michael Raney on trumpet. The final concert on June 27 will feature drummer Dan Murillo and the Jazz Couriers.
