Guilderland Town Band keeps summertime beat
For more than 50 years, musicians have found outlet, support
The town band. As iconic as any Americana summer symbol. Where musicians young and old get a chance to ply their talents in a public forum. Think “The Music Man” without the con. Think Guilderland Town Band.
For Bailey Yerdon, a junior at Guilderland High School, performing live with the town band in Tawasentha Park last month was a welcome change from the online concerts she’s been playing with the school band all year.
“Having that applause at the end and seeing that standing ovation really validates your hard work — more than sitting at home with your parents and siblings clapping for you,” the 17-year-old percussionist said.
Yerdon, one of five teenagers in the band, was invited to join by the woman she calls her “school mom” — Guilderland native Kathleen Richards Ehlinger, director of the town band since 2002 and of the high school band since 1986.
“She’s so much more to me than a conductor,” Yerdon said of her mentor. “Any problem I have, anytime at all, she is the first person I go to and the first person to help me out.”
When it comes to supporting the growth of young musicians like Yerdon, Ehlinger is paying it forward. Don Webster, who founded the Guilderland Town Band in 1969 and was its first conductor, handpicked her as his successor, recognizing in her the leadership qualities she hadn’t yet embraced in herself.
“Sometimes when you’re young, you don’t realize what the possibilities are until somebody points them out,” Ehlinger reflected in a recent interview. “I never thought in a million years that I would be doing this job, but this is what’s actually keeping me refreshed and enthusiastic about life.”
After canceling all performances last summer, the band is back in a big way, with 95 volunteer members ranging in age up to 86, encompassing professionals, dedicated amateurs and up-and-comers like Yerdon. Its 2021 debut on June 24 drew about 250 people, a good showing, Ehlinger said — though not as well attended as the band’s 50th anniversary concert in 2019, with more than a thousand in the audience.
She’s expecting a bigger crowd on Thursday, July 15, now that social distancing is a thing of the past for both listeners and musicians. The theme of the program is “Love Is Here to Stay,” featuring the Sinatra classic, sung by recent Guilderland grad Morgan Dempsey. The program also includes Marvin Hamlisch’s “What I Did for Love,” a medley from “West Side Story,” Warren Barker’s “Tango Fandango” and music from the animated film “Frozen.” Vocalist Natalie Russo, a student at Russell Sage College, will join the band for a rendition of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”
The band’s final concert of the
summer, on Aug. 5, takes a patriotic tack, with John Philip Sousa marches, music by John Williams from the film “Lincoln” and, of course, “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” The program also includes “Let There Be Peace On Earth,” originally written for the International Children’s Choir, and Daniel Moore’s “Extra! Extra!,” subtitled, “A Nostalgic Celebration of the Daily Newspaper.”
Yerdon, who has been playing percussion and piano since elementary school and also performs with the Empire State Youth Orchestra’s Youth Percussion Ensemble, is looking forward to the variety and the challenge.
“In the school band, we’re all on the same playing field, but here I’m the underdog, so I have to push myself to keep up,” she said. “Playing with professionals and experiencing what a professional gig looks like has been so exciting.”
As for Ehlinger, the time she spends rehearsing and conducting the band has been revitalizing, after what she says was the most difficult year of teaching in her 36-year career.
“It’s a gift every time I get in front of that podium,” she said. “They bring out the best in me. With people who love music, if you inspire them and they inspire you, it becomes something bigger than all of you, and that’s remarkable.”