Striking up band for concerts’ return
Golden Gate Park series shortened by pandemic, financial woes
Wes Harrigan and Amber O’Halloran had left their kids with Grandma on Sunday and were walking on John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park when they heard the brassy sound of horns blowing in with the ocean breeze. They followed that music down past the SkyStar Observation Wheel and into the Music Concourse.
“We were seeing people doing tai chi and wondering if it was recorded music; and lo and behold, there was a live band onstage,” Harrigan said. The couple sat down and “we haven’t left,” O’Halloran added. “We’re supposed to be getting our exercise right now.”
What had them mesmerized were the Golden Gate Park Band’s players, up on the band shell in their faded crimson jackets and hats, performing their first free Sunday afternoon concert of the season. With the COVID19 lockdown, the band hadn’t played for 22 months, and there was pentup energy blowing through those horns and woodwinds as the musicians worked through a repertoire that started with “America the Beautiful” and carried through “Water Music” by Handel from 1717, and on through the film score of “The Incredibles” from 2004.
“It sounds really good,” said Harrigan, who formerly played sax in the Mount Diablo High marching band. “With the amount of sound coming out of there you expect to see 50 or 60 people up there.” There were only 30, but they are all professionals, members of Musicians Union Local 6.
The band’s tradition of Sunday concerts in the park goes back to 1882, before the Spreckels Temple of Music — the band shell — opened in 1900 with 75,000 people crowded into the Music Concourse, according to lore. The band has survived two pandemics and played more than 5,000 concerts in the park.
“It’s been part of my life for 40 years, and for some people longer than that,” said trumpet player Mark Nemoyten, noting that tubaist Hank Niebolt has been with the band for 61 years.
“To be back in the saddle is terrific,” said bandleader Bob Calonico, who took the baton in 2018, after retiring as director of the UC Berkeley marching band. “These are all professional musicians, and they depend on this for their livelihoods.”
That livelihood is under threat because after the 2020 season was canceled, the 2021 season has been reduced from the usual 30 Sundays of concerts to just 11, taking it to Oct. 3. Calonico had his doubts that this season would happen at all, and the band did not apply for funding from Grants for the Arts by the March 1 deadline.
This eliminated a longstanding source of revenue through the hotel tax fund, which Grants for the Arts distributes. In years past the band has gotten 80% of its annual budget of $100,000 through Grants for the Arts.
Band members agreed to freeze their wages at a rate that is already below normal union scale.
Calonico said the band’s reserve fund will pay the musicians for this shortened season. But after 139 years in the park, this could be the last. According to Grants for the Arts director Vallie Brown, the Park Band was advised long before the pandemic to develop alternative funding to reduce its reliance on the city agency.
Nemoyten, who is the local 6 union rep, said that the annual funding of $80,000 was outside of the regular grant process and had been stable for at least 25 years. He said the criteria on the application process were changed without warning, making it impossible for the band to qualify for the same level of funding this year or in the future.
“The band was told it had to diversify its funding, and it never did,” Brown said. “Our arts funding has gone down drastically” — with loss of several million dollars in hotel tax funds — and the organization needed an infusion from the general fund that was granted by the Board of Supervisors. About 250 arts organizations apply for grants annually, and the competition will be tougher next year.
A traditional municipal band that plays free Sunday concerts may not “fit into the mission of Grants for the Arts,” Brown said.
The Park Band has heard this tune before. Even back in the 1990s, director Bob Hansen was warning of dire fiscal emergencies and would place a 1gallon yellow plastic mustard jar on top of the programs. Concertgoers were expected to slip a few bucks into the jar in exchange for a program.
“The Golden Gate Park Band is in dire straits,” Hansen liked to announce. “We have some glorious mustard jars imported from Poland, and we do need donations.”
Calonico is not above begging either, though he no longer prints programs and there is no yellow mustard jar with a slot in the lid. On Sunday, audience members were invited to visit the band’s website to make a donation and to write their supervisors to encourage financial support.
Sunday’s crowd, seated on park benches, was susceptible to his overtures. Pat and Chuck Butte, who have missed these concerts, spread a blanket out on their bench so that their pug, Pearl, would be comfortable throughout the 90minute set.
“I’m so excited,” Pat said. “It’s just a nice, fun, free thing to do on a Sunday afternoon.” Though the concerts are free, revenue comes into the park in other ways. Chuck arrived with two mustardlathered hot dogs from a cart on the concourse.
Before the 1 p.m. concert, musicians in their jackets with the band crest on the breast pocket were conspicuous with their families at the nearby de Young Cafe tables.
“The band coming back brings so much joy that people have missed,” said cafe manager Chris Bennett.
San Francisco residents Erik and Katherine Orr, and their kids, Jacob, 8, and Ella, 6, had just emerged from the parking garage when they were surprised by the serenade, which Ella said “sounds like princess music. Like you hear in a movie.” They were unaware that Golden Gate Park has its own house band. The kids agreed to take a seat and listen even before they hit the food trucks or the SkyStar. This allowed their parents to check off a box for family cultural exposure.
“Live music adds to the experience of being in the park,” Katherine said. “I don’t know when my kids would hear this music otherwise.”