'Broadway and Blue... and Clarinet Too'

Join us for the beginning of Tacoma Concert Band's 28th season. Featuring guest soloist Lawrence Bradley.

Lawrence P. H. Bradley, clarinet soloist with the Tacoma Concert Band.

Lawrence P. H. Bradley studied clarinet and saxophone performance at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Bradley’s orchestral freelance work included performing with such ensembles as Canterbury Festival Orchestra, Westminster Philharmonic, and the Royal Ballet.

In 1981, Bradley left England to take a position with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, which led to opportunities to perform orchestral, chamber, and solo works in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. Bradley earned a Master of Arts from Gonzaga University and graduated with honors in Music Education at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. During this time, he began performing with the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra and the Tacoma Concert Band.

Bradley currently teaches band in the University Place, Washington, School District where he was named District Teacher of the Year in 2001. He is a woodwind coach for the Tacoma Youth Symphony and is an instructor for the University of Puget Sound Community Music Department. Visit his website at www.canterburyartists.com

About the Tacoma Concert Band:
The Tacoma Concert Band was founded in 1981 by Robert Musser, who, at that time, was Director of Bands and Professor of Music at the University of Puget Sound, and principal oboe in the Tacoma Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Musser, who has served as conductor and music director since the band’s inception, invited some of the area’s finest woodwind, brass and percussion players to form the ensemble. Every one of these invited accepted the invitation, and with full instrumentation the ensemble met for the first rehearsal at the University of Puget Sound on a Wednesday in September of 1981. The band played its first concert November 11th, 1981, in the Stadium High School auditorium. For the first five seasons the band rehearsed at the University of Puget Sound and performed home concerts at Stadium High School.

On April 4th, 1986, the Tacoma Concert Band played its first “Sousa” concert (a concert in the style of the John Philip Sousa band) at the Pantages Theater, and beginning that fall, it moved its regular season concerts to the Pantages Theater. The band performed its next Sousa Concert in 1994, and since then, due to popular demand, it has programmed a Sousa concert every other year (and now performs each twice). In 1996, the band played a second performance of the concert in the Sumner Performing Arts Center and in 2006, it played its second performance in Olympia at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts.

Over the past 28 years the band has played concerts at many locations throughout the Puget Sound area. It was honored to perform for the Western International Band Clinic; Northwest Music Educators National Conference; Northwest College Band Directors National Association; Washington Music Educators Association: EXPO 1986 in Vancouver, British Columbia; and Seattle Symphony’s ‘Day of Music’ at Benaroya Hall. The band also played for the 100th anniversaries of Fort Warden in Port Townsend and Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. In 2007 the Tacoma Concert Band proudly represented Tacoma in the 21st Festival Des Anches D’Azur festival in La Croix Valmer, France.

The band has received awards for excellence from the Pierce County Arts Commission and the Tacoma Arts Commission. In 1989, the Tacoma Concert Band was presented the Sudler Scroll of the John Philip Sousa Foundation of Washington D.C. North America’s most prestigious award for community concert bands, the Sudler Scroll is awarded to bands that have demonstrated exceptionally high standards of musical excellence. The Tacoma Concert Band was honored as only the third band in North America to receive this award.

The Tacoma Concert Band has released four compact disc and three cassette recordings. KING-FM has played its recordings a number of times, and the band was included on their 1998 CD “Seattle’s Most Wanted.”

Beginning in 1990, the band began its Student Soloist Competition, inviting outstanding high school students to compete for the opportunity to perform a solo with the band at one of its season concerts. This annual tradition continues today. The winner of the first solo contest was Jason Gilliam, a euphonium player from Foss High School in Tacoma. Jason is now a regular member of the Tacoma Concert Band and has often been featured as soloist with the band. In 2005 the Tacoma Concert Band began a new tradition in its continuing support of school music programs, inviting selected high school band musicians to “sit in” with the band for a part of one of its concerts.

The commissioning of new works for the concert band is a commitment of the Tacoma Concert Band. The band has commissioned and premiered “A Sea of Glass Mingled with Fire” (1997) by Robert Jager; “Praises” (2001) by David Holsinger; “Concerto for Piccolo and Wind Orchestra” (2002) by Bruce Broughton as arranged by Randol Bass; “Harp Concertino” (2004) by Kevin Kasak; and for the band’s 25th Anniversary “Northwest Passages” (2006) by Aldo Forte; and “Northwest Focus” (2007) by Robert Hutchinson.

For the past few years, the Tacoma Concert Band, under the sponsorship of the Tacoma Philharmonic, has provided educational children’s concerts for Tacoma area grade children. These concerts, held at the Pantages Theater, have been very successful and it is hoped that this collaboration will continue in the future.

The Tacoma Concert Band currently performs a season of four concerts at the Pantages Theater in Tacoma and occasionally at other venues. It also performs a summer series of free concerts in area parks. The Tacoma Concert Band plans to continue to record and release compact discs, commission new works for band, feature great soloist, and explore the possibilities of performing additional concerts in different venues both in the Puget Sound area and elsewhere. The band’s mission, to provide an outstanding performance opportunity for local musicians, support music in our schools, and enrich the cultural environment of the Tacoma area, has clearly been met.

A special “Thank You” to this season’s sponsors: ArtsFund, Ben B. Cheney Foundation, Washington State Arts Commission, the forest Foundation, Columbia Bank, Classical KING FM 98.1, City of Tacoma Arts Commission and the Agnes J. Waterhouse Endowment Fund of the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation.