Editor's note: This story was produced for the ear and designed to be heard. If you're able, WCMU encourages you to listen to the audio version of this story by clicking the LISTEN button above. This transcript was edited for clarity and length.
Jack Ecker: 100 years is a long time, for anything. The Saginaw Eddy Band is marking that milestone anniversary Sunday evening at 7 o'clock. WCMU's David Nicholas spoke with conductor Norm Wika about the history and the highlights.
David Nicholas: This Sunday the 12th is the one that kind of really captures the headlines as the official celebration concert. But folks, what can they expect in terms of the added special things or celebration?
Norm Wika: So this coming Sunday, July 12th at 7 o'clock at the Jolt Event Center is going to be our official 100th anniversary concert, and we've been celebrating all season, but this is really our big event for the year where we're really celebrating the anniversary of the band. The music that I selected for this concert was either selected by members of the band or through a series of audio audience surveys that we did last year.
We surveyed the audience and asked them, what pieces they especially liked, and I picked a program of music from all of those pools. So, hopefully there is something that touches everybody in a personal way that comes to the concert.
The band has also been working for the last couple of years towards this performance by commissioning a new piece. Our former music director, Joe Radke, made contact with Nathan Bieber, who is a Saginaw composer, and commissioned Nathan to write a piece. especially for this concert. And so Nathan has done that and we're going to premiere that piece on Sunday as well. And so there's going to be a mixture of favorites and brand new music for this program as we celebrate this anniversary.
DN: Are people keeping tabs as far as some of the longest serving members, people that have been with a band for the most number of seasons? Does anybody have that proud title to their name?
NW: Yes, actually, we have in our French horn section, we have a member, Andy Michaelson, who's been in the band for, we think this is his 52nd year in the band.
DN: Wow. That is some longevity.
NW: That is super impressive. But we also have a good number of people that have been in the band for over 20 years.
I'd like to just briefly share that this season, We had an audience member by the name of Betty Van Ockton, who had been a writer for the Saginaw News, and she wrote a poem about her experience seeing the Eddy Band. This poem was written during the time when George Anderson was the conductor of the band, and George was the conductor, I believe, from 1968 to 1994. And so this poem had been around for quite a long time, and she got it to us and we were able to read it during one of our early concerts this season.
And it really tied back, she mentioned in the poem things like opening the concert with the national anthem, closing it with God Bless America, things that we still do today at each one of our concerts. And so it was very neat to see that connection between when that poem was written many years ago and what we do today.
DN: A testament to how special the band has been to the community and we say happy anniversary.
NW: Thank you very much. We hope to see everybody out on Sunday, to join us in celebrating this special time for the band.
JE: That was Norm Wika, conductor of the Saginaw Eddy Band, speaking with WCMU's David Nicholas. The Eddy Band's 100th anniversary concert is this Sunday at 7 p.m. at the Jolt Events Center in downtown Saginaw. It's free and open to the public.
