Potsdam Community Band Back For More Concerts

POTSDAM - School is still out for summer - the smell of industrial-strength cleaners is nearly overpowering in the halls - but the high school's band room already was full of practicing musicians earlier this week.

A cacophony of notes spilled through the halls as more than 60 people got into tune. Then, with a few flicks of the conductor's baton, the Potsdam Community Band started playing Sammy Nestico's "All through the Night," stopping only a few times for notes or corrections.

The band is preparing for its second concert, after the success of its first during Potsdam Summerfest, when 85 people played together in the gazebo at Ives Park. The next will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday on the lawn in front of the high school.

"We thought probably it would be just a summer thing, but we polled the members and a lot of them wanted to continue," said Theresa Witmer, the band's conductor and music director. "We're not going to be a rehearse-every-week band, but we are thinking of another concert after this."

Plans already are in the works to perform a holiday concert.

Next week, the group will play selections from about 10 pieces. Since the band comprises all ages and abilities, selecting music that is not too hard for beginners but engaging enough for veteran players can be difficult, Ms. Witmer said.

"I wanted to be able to keep everybody interested," the high school band director and one of the founders of the community band said. "I think we've got some music that challenges our best players. If the beginners have to leave a few notes out, they have to leave a few notes out, and I think that's fine."

Potsdam had a community band more than three decades ago, but it died out in the late 1970s.

Ms. Witmer and two other musicians, Ronald E. Berry and Laurel Kuxhaus, decided to resurrect it earlier this year.

"It was the selfish desire of wanting to play some good music. We needed to invent a playing opportunity and we invented a playing opportunity," said Mr. Berry, who plays tuba. "I've been back to music for six years now, most of that on tuba. I grew up on trumpet and that's been packed away for 35 years. The band needed low bass, and I said, 'Why not me?'"

Many of the musicians who will play next week are middle-aged or slightly older, but there are a number of high school students as well. Some, like freshman Taylor J. Prosper, have more experience on their instruments than the older members. The 14-year-old has been playing saxophone since he was in fourth grade.

"It's fun because of the talent that's involved," said Mr. Berry, a retired civil engineer. "We've got a lot of beginners in the band and we're all making music together. That's a community band."