By Laurie O’Neill — Laurie@concordbridge.org
Some musicians are multi-talented.
Take Jake Kinney, a member of the Concord Band. Kinney plays second trumpet in the group and piano in its Jazz Ensemble.
Kinney grew up in Sudbury and earned a degree in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he played trumpet in the Festival Jazz Ensemble and sang with and arranged music for MIT Resonance, an a cappella group. He also has an M.A. in linguistics from Boston University.
Last year Kinney fulfilled another dream by thru-hiking the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail, documenting his trek online.
Kinney will be featured as a piano soloist in the band’s fall concert on October 26, when he will perform George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” The concert theme is “100th Anniversaries,” and music director Jim O’Dell chose the piece to honor the composition’s creation and its first performance a century ago.
Three generations
The band is a family affair for Kinney, whose grandfather Ken Troup, a percussionist, and aunt, Kathryn Denney, a horn player, are members. Denney is also music director for The Concord Players and other area theater companies.
Kinney has been playing the piano since he was 3. The Gershwin composition is “one of my favorite pieces of music of all time, truly occupying a unique niche within the piano repertoire,” he says.
The fall concert will also include music by Giacomo Puccini and Gabriel Fauré, both of whom died in 1924; a Concord Band transcription of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Pas Redoublé” by Arthur Frackenpold, who was born in 1924; and music by Henry Mancini, also born that year.
The Concord Band’s home base is the Performing Arts Center at 51 Walden, and its summer home is at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard. It was founded in 1959 as a marching unit for Concord’s Patriots Day parade but has been strictly a concert organization since 1970 and includes 65 members from many area communities.
‘Bandemonium’ and Pops
The group will present “Bandemonium,” an interactive concert for children and their families, on November 9. It will also provide music for the Concord tree lighting on Dec. 1.
Other Concord Band concerts this season include its Holiday Pops on December 14; its Winter Concert on March 8, which will celebrate “Music from Warm Places,” a celebration of Latin musical themes; and its Spring Pops Concert on April 12, which will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolutionary War.
Band members represent more than 40 area communities and a wide variety of professions. They have played in the organization for an average of nearly 15 years; 20 have been members for 25 years or more. Many are alumni of prestigious college, military, or professional bands.
The Saturday, October 26, concert will be held at 51 Walden Street at 7 p.m. Admission is free, with a requested donation of $20. For more information, visit ConcordBand.org
