Overview
For more than twenty years, the Allentown Band has reached thousands of students from area school districts in Lehigh and Northampton Counties with its two-pronged Education Outreach programs presented in Allentown's Miller Symphony Hall at no cost to the students or to the school districts. In the Fall of each year, the band presents Youth Concerts designed especially for students in grades 4 to 8; and in the Spring, up to fifty select musicians in grades 9 to 12, recommended by their band directors, are invited to perform Side by Side with the Allentown Band in a public concert.
On Sunday, April 19th at 4:00 pm, fifty advanced musicians from fourteen area high schools will perform side by side with fifty members of the Allentown Band, conducted by Ronald Demkee in a free concert at Miller Symphony Hall. Mr. Loras Schissel, Senior Musicologist at the Library of Congress and retired conductor of the Virginia Grand Military Band will serve as Guest Conductor for part of the program and Mr. Scott Shelsta, former Principal Trombone with the U.S. Army Band, Pershing's Own, Washington, D.C. will be the featured Guest Soloist. In celebration of America's Semiquincentennial - 250th Anniversary Year, the program will feature music exclusively of American composers, including John Williams, Morton Gould, Arthur Pryor, Leonard Bernstein, Richard Rogers, and John Philip Sousa.