Saturday, March 6
8:00 p.m.

James O'Dell, Music Director, Conducting

Performing Arts Center, Concord

51 Walden Street

Concord, MA 01742 | Directions

The French Connection is the the theme of Concord Band’s March 6th Winter Concert, featuring French music and a guest performance by the entertaining Back Bay Saxophone Quartet. The program will include works by French and American composers, including Milhaud, Berlioz, Dukas, and Ives, and a medley of Stephen Foster songs for saxophone quartet and band by Bill Holcombe.

It was about one hundred and fifty years ago that inventor Adolphe Sax produced the first version of the saxophone in Paris, a “valved bugle.” His examples were so successful that they became known as saxhorns. The modern saxophone is widely used in concert bands and sometimes in orchestral works.

Award winning alto saxophone soloist Dennis Shafer will join the Concord Band to perform an arrangement of Claude Debussy's The Girl with the Flaxen Hair. Dennis is a member and co-founder of the award winning Back Bay Saxophone Quartet, a dynamic group dedicated to advancing chamber music of the 21st century. From landmark compositions of centuries past, to the most recent works of this new century, their concerts are stimulating, entertaining, and unpredictable.

The group formed in 2001 while its members studied at Boston's two conservatories. They made their home in Boston's “Back Bay” area, pounding the pavement with their energetic performances. Audiences were lured by the invigorating sounds of the group's popular and jazz genre, and as the group's focus pivoted toward more innovative programming, listeners became even more engaged. Members are, from left to right: John Knasas, Dennis Shafer, Lauren Nicholas and Jennifer Bill.