The American Band College Directors Band 24th Annual Craterian Ginger Rogers Concert takes place on Monday, June 25, 7:30 p.m.. The theater is located at 31 S. Central, Medford. Tickets are $18 for adults, $13 for seniors 62 and older, and $7 for kids 12 and under. Tickets are available on-line at bandworld.org or through the Craterian box office at 31 S. Central or 541-779-3000.
The two 90-member bands are composed of 180 high school, middle school, and college band directors who come from most states the US and who are in the three-year American Band College masters degree program.
Guest conductors will be: Mike Bankhead, head of the music department at Utah State University; Anthony Maiello, Professor of Music at George Mason University; and Robert Ponto, Director of Bands at UO.
Guest soloist is saxophonist Eugene Rousseau. Currently a member of the faculty of the School of Music at the University of Minnesota, Rousseau is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Among his many recordings are those with the Haydn Trio of Vienna, the Budapest Strings, and the Winds of Indiana.
Rousseau has performed across North America and on five continents since his Carnegie Hall debut in 1965. He gave the first solo saxophone recitals in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, London, and Amsterdam and has given a yearly master course at the prestigious Mozarteum in Salzburg since 1991. Rousseau has appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Pan-American Festival Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony, the BBC Orchestra in London, the Janek Philharmonic (Czech Republic), the Kansai Philharmonic (Osaka), the Santiago Philharmonic (Chile), and recitals and master classes throughout the world on a variety of topics related to his instrument.
85-year old Johnny Long will be honored during the performance. In March, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts named Dr. Long one of 10 winners of the Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teacher Awards. Earlier in March, he was named an Honorary Life Member of the American Bandmasters Association, one of only two living bandmasters to hold this distinction.
Influential in getting John Phillip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” named the US National March in 1987, Dr. Long will conduct the piece as more than 75 American flags are carried into the auditorium during the finale.
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