February 2014 Newsletter

Greetings members, ex-members, friends and supporters of the Rockville Brass Band.  Welcome to the Band's first newsletter of 2014.

What an amazing end to 2013!  December saw us unveil our stand banners and new all black uniforms as we played seasonal music to appreciative crowds at the Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda.  We played twice and had the privilege of listening to the Trinity Lutheran Hand-bell Choir between our performances.

The performance at the mall gave us an opportunity to perform the music for our end of year seasonal concerts at Hughes Methodist Church in Wheaton and the Mt. Calvary Catholic Church in Forestville.  The concerts were held jointly with the Maryland Choral Society (Richard Giarusso).  Thank you to all of the band and choir for what was a truly amazing pair of concerts.  The weather unfortunately affected us on the Sunday, however I was proud to be part of a fantastic production.  Special thanks goes to Norman Wallis (cornet, RBB) and Bill Nickels (MCS) for their Herculean efforts in putting the concerts in place.  Moreover, more importantly the band and choir were able to donate $7,500 to Make-A-Wish® Mid-Atlantic, to help local children with life-threatening medical conditions to realize their dream.  If you missed it, you can watch clips on our website and see photographs on our Facebook page.

Please join me in welcoming Steve O'Brien to RBB's trombone section.  He joins us from the UMD Gamer Symphony Orchestra where he was the VP and music arranger.  Steve also plays with the Washington Metropolitan Gamer Symphony Orchestra. His first performance with RBB was at Montgomery Mall.

Often the winter season has been a quiet one for RBB, but this year it is proving especially busy as we journey out of state for the 3rd Mid-Atlantic Brass Band Festival in Glassboro, NJ and the North American Brass Band Championships in Grand Rapids, MI.

As always, until the next newsletter you can keep in touch with us via our website, Facebook Page andTwitter feed where we post details of our up coming events, news and vacancies.