MUSIC

The Metropolitan Wind Symphony, a 60-piece by-audition concert band, will perform four free outdoor concerts on Thursday nights in July, beginning on the 9th, at the Hastings Park Bandstand, Massachusetts Ave and Worthen Road. These concerts, Lexington Thursdays with MWS, will run, weather permitting, from 7:30 to 8:30 pm on July 9, July 16, July 23, and July 30. Continuing the long and proud tradition he was part of by conducting hundreds of high quality free outdoor concerts for 29 years as the Director of the United States Coast Guard Band, Lewis Buckley will be on the podium directing the Metropolitan Wind Symphony for these four concerts.

Here is how Mr. Buckley describes these musical events: “We will be bringing you outdoor concerts the final four Thursday evenings in July (weather permitting) at the Hastings Park Bandstand in Lexington, just up the street from the high school, at 7:30 pm. These four programs, all different from each other, will contain tributes to or selections from: The movies (Harry Potter, and The Cowboys – an early but brilliant scoring by John Williams), Morton Gould (American Salute), Leroy Anderson (Trumpeter’s Lullaby), great American composers George Gershwin, George Cohan, and Leonard Bernstein, and some of my music (America's Bravest, America's Finest - a march dedicated to the firefighters and police who died on 9/11; Con Sabor Espanol, a Spanish-style piece that will have you reaching for your castanets; and Tribute to Doc, a trumpet solo I wrote some years ago saluting one of my childhood and adult trumpet heroes, Doc Severinson). I'll be picking up the trumpet to bring you this solo. There will be American folk music (Turkey in the Straw), Broadway (Porgy and Bess, West Side Story) and the marches of Sousa, Fillmore and Edwin Franko Goldman. And, of course, every concert will end with The Stars and Stripes Forever, our National March. There won't be anything stuffy about these concerts; our goal is to recreate one of the primary forms of outdoor summer entertainment of a century ago when the concert bands of John Philip Sousa, Patrick Gilmore, and Herbert L. Clarke were all the rage. So bring your kids, a few lawn chairs or blankets, a picnic supper, and settle back to enjoy an old-fashioned band concert in the park. We look forward to seeing you!”

There is free parking and the venues are handicapped accessible. The MWS web page at http://www.mws-boston.org has additional information and directions. Email mws@mws-boston.org with any questions or call (617) 983-1370.