Carillon Park band kicks off concert series
DAYTON —
The Carillon Park Concert Band kicked off its summer concert series May 27 at Carillon Park with a patriotic-themed performance in honor of Memorial Day. There are seven more concerts in the series between June 10 and July 7.
About 100 high school students from all over the Miami Valley participate in the band said Michael Berning, director of the CPCB since 2006. “Students come from so many different schools, from as far away as Troy, Tipp City, Springboro, Greenon and everywhere in between,” Berning said. “Students audition in mid-May, and are selected for the band, which starts rehearsing right away.”
Berning has a lot of experience with bands. He has been the coordinator of music and director of bands for Kettering City Schools since 1997. “Before that, I was the band director at Versailles Schools for seven years,” he said.
“These kids really like band,” Berning said. “They are giving up summertime to play in an outdoor concert band. I think what is really special is seeing kids from 15 to 20 different schools come together and in such a short time make great music together. It is truly a testament to music being a universal language.”
A couple special concerts this summer include the one at Kettering’s Fraze Pavilion with the Dayton Jazz Orchestra and the Miami Valley Jazz Camp, and the last concert in the series, on July 7, when the band will play with the Carillon. “It is great family entertainment in the style of the old touring concert bands. We play marches, patriotic music, Broadway and movie selections,” Berning said.
The CPCB is sponsored by Dayton History, a private, nonprofit history organization formed in 2005 when the Montgomery County Historical Society merged with Carillon Historical Park. It operates seven museums and historic sites around Dayton, the most famous of which is Carillon Park, said Alex Heckman, director of education for Dayton History.
The CPCB has been around in one form or another since 1944.
“This band is a logical fit for Dayton History because we share a relationship with Old River Park and NCR,” Heckman said. “The Carillon was a gift from Edith Walton Deeds, wife of NCR chairman, Colonel Edward Deeds. Mrs. Deeds was an accomplished musician and was inspired to build a carillon for Dayton after hearing beautiful bell music in Belgium during a European trip in the 1930s.
“So the CPCB is an extension of our Carillon founders original intent to share music with the community.”
Reinhard and Hofmeister Architects, the same firm responsible for Rockefeller Center in New York City, designed the Deeds Carillon. It was added to the National Register in 2005.