There are some 50 – 50! – performing arts groups in our immediate region, and I regret that it has taken me this long to savor the delights of the Oneonta Community Concert Band, which gave a Veterans’ Day tribute concert at the Oneonta Theatre on Chestnut Street this past Sunday.
If that rousing event was any measure of their quality, I have missed out on a lot all these years.
The organization can trace a circuitous history all the way back to 1853, though 1899 seems to be a clearer marker of its present form. In any case, that’s what I call remarkable institutional longevity, especially in the arts.
Its present configuration is led (for some 27 years now) by the ever-enthusiastic and supremely knowledgeable and gifted René Prins, professor, musician and exuberant bandmaster.
His entrance onto the stage of the magnificent old house, currently undergoing exciting renovation, set the tone: He was clad in white trousers, a quasi-military jacket (with medals), and a perky cap.
Jaunty doesn’t begin to do justice to the effect. The program was pretty more-than-jaunty as well: original, thoughtful, well structured and edifying.
There was a bit of what one might expect, and rightly so (“The Star-Spangled Banner,” some Sousa, “God Bless America”), but there were some nice surprises as well. Smug music-lover that I am, I didn’t know that the second movement of Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony was also known as the Pilgrims’ March, for example. That provided a nice bit of “classical” repertoire.
When I saw “Hands Across the Sea” on the program I, again smugly, thought I knew what to expect. But no. The fine print revealed that it was the “Hands Across the Sea Fantasia” by Theodore Moses Ben Tobani, not the better-known, similarly titled march by John Philip Sousa (who, by the way, appeared with his band six – six! – times on that very stage in the early 20th Century).
The Tobani was a revelation, a hefty, cleverly woven medley of national anthems from the world over, composed in 1910. It calls for contrasts, variety of color and mood, and demands sustained concentration and stamina, and the players more than did it justice, as they did to all the selections performed.
It is always a pleasure to discover something new, but then, of course, Mr. Prins knows his stuff backward and forward, and I am grateful to him for the expansion of my musical knowledge.
I love the sound of a good concert band. It is good-natured, bright and bracing, and, at its best, evokes one single stirring image: America.
The Oneonta Community Concert Band’s next appearance will be in February, a concert entitled “Summer in the Winter,” date and venue TBA. As I say so frequently, WATCH THESE PAGES!

Sam Goodyear’s column on the arts in Otsego and Delaware counties appears weekly.