Marshall's Civic Band
Past Concert Highlights

The band performed two pieces with Mr. Romm and a third piece as a band feature. The concert was held in the recently remodeled White Concert Hall on the Washburn University campus with Washburn's director of bands, Kirt Saville, conducting. In addition to the concert, Mr. Romm also conducted several master classes during his visit.

In 1971, Mr. Romm joined the newly formed Canadian Brass, which later established itself as the premiere brass ensemble in the world. In June of 2000, he retired from the group after participating in well over 4,500 concerts, 60 recordings, numerous television concert specials, videos, and hundreds of master classes. He has performed with major orchestras and with the greatest living conductors in the world. Ron has shared the stage in live performance and recorded CDs with leading artists including Wynton Marsalis, Arturo Sandoval, Jon Faddis, Doc Severinsen, and brass performers from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Berlin Philharmonic. As an educator, Ronald Romm has contributed to the growth of brass performance through hundreds of student clinics and master classes worldwide.

Ron and his wife and long time partner Avis continue an active concert career as a spectacular Trumpet and Piano duo. In 2001-2002 the Romms presented their stage show "A Trumpeter’s Dream" in 35 cities across the United States to rave reviews and standing ovations.

Well, I did it. Last Thursday evening I attended one of Topeka's many summer band concerts.  It was a delight. It was a beautiful evening and the music played by the members of Marshall's Civic Band was wonderful.

It was the last concert of the summer season for Marshall's Civic Band and was held at the Gage Park Amphitheater. The program featured original pieces that were written just for the band. Clifford Manning conducted the concert.

The icing on the cake, so to speak, was the fact that my oldest son, David Haefele, drove over from Kansas City with his family to hear the band. And, my number four son, Rob Mooney, the Metro News sport columnist, brought his family over from Lawrence.

It might seem like a long way for David to drive, but he actually had an ulterior motive. I had called and told him that Cliff Manning was the director. If you've been reading Out and About for long, you already know that Cliff Manning is an old friend and schoolmate, as well as my three older sons, David, Mike and Jim's band instructor in Osage City many years ago.

In fact, I might add that Cliff was one of their "favorite" band instructors and they've had a few.

Watching David throughout the concert, I could tell he was thinking back to those "good old days" when he and Casey Mussato, Scott Trueblood and all the others gave Cliff a run for his money.

After the concert, I tried to get Cliff to spill the beans and tell me what the boys were really like in band. All he would say was that, "David was slick." Meaning probably that he got away with a lot.

David and Cliff were pleased to see one another. It was obvious. David's opening remark when Cliff saw him sitting in the crowd was, "Guess I'm still good looking, he recognized me."

I somehow think Rob felt a bit left out. Cliff was not his band instructor because he was just a little guy at the time. Later, like David, he played trumpet. But, he did spend a lot of time at Cliff's house playing with his son, Tim. At least I think it was Tim.

Okay. So much for reminiscing. The band was great and if you didn't get to one of their concerts this year, try to make it next year. It will be worth your time.

Strike up the band!

Cliff Manning, co-conductor, prepares for an evening of music.

Lloyd Woodburn passes out programs.

More than 150 people brought their lawn chairs or blankets to relax and listen to the music.

The performance that night also featured a number of Kansas-related music, including:

• "Marshall's Military Band March," by  W.F. Roehr
• "The Kansas March," by Duff Middleton
• "The Kansas Bandman," by Karl L. King
• "The Kansas Wildcats," by John Philip Sousa
• "The Wizard of Oz," by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg
• "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer
• "Home on the Range," by Daniel E. Kelley and Brewster Higley

Marshall's Band's library contains numerous pieces of Kansas-related music, many of which are handwritten originals. Most of these pieces date from the turn of the 20th Century and are difficult to perform because they are written for obsolete instrumentation, the paper on which they were written has become too fragile to play from, and often the paper is too yellowed to reproduce. We recently had many of these compositions transcribed with the help of music publishing software. For more information on this project see our What's New page.

For more information about this concert, see the Topeka Capital-Journal story by Bill Blankenship that ran on August 3, 2002, Marshall's Civic Band takes on Kansas tunes.

Pictured left to right:
Rick Baker, Edward Baker, Dr. J. D. Parr, Ellie Parr, Annie Parr