Discover The Legacy: Cedar City Community Band Celebrates Rich History

Do you remember all the hubbub caused by Professor Harold Hill when he arrived in the fictional town of River City, Iowa. He got everyone stirred up that there needed to be a band in town to keep the boys off the streets and if the band didn’t materialize the town was surely headed for trouble. 

Well, we live in a different time and place, and I don’t know if a band would chase away the problems we face as a community here in Cedar City. But if you, like the mayor in Music Man, go around town asking the question, “where’s the band?!!?,” I have an answer for you. 

This Wednesday the Cedar City Community Band will be presenting a free concert called “Thunder: A Tribute to CSU/SUSC/SUU.” The concert will start at 7:30PM in the Cedar High School Auditorium.

Steve Shirts, the leader of the Cedar City Community Band (and maybe one of those kids who need to be kept off the streets) was on the radio with us to talk a little bit about the band and this concert. 

One purpose Steve had in joining us was to get the word out that Cedar City does indeed have a community band. Shirts mentioned that may not be common knowledge but, “we're trying to change that. There's been a community band in Cedar City since the late 1800s. There's been several incarnations of that, and there's been times where the band has gone defunct and and resurrected.” 

The latest rendition of the community band had a recent beginning with Shirts explaining, “Five years ago, Doctor Adam Lambert at SSU started a community band, to let Community members play, but also as a kind of a second concert band for the university. And he did it for a couple of years and (then) bribed me, twisted my arm, to take it over after I retired, and it's been growing, and it's amazing the musicians we have in our communities.”

The concert on Wednesday has a twofold purpose, first again, to give the opportunity for the community to enjoy the band, perhaps for the first time. The other purpose is a thank you to the university for getting the band restarted and helping along the way. 

Shirts explained, “This is actually the first concert we've done on our own inside on the stage. We have shared the concerts with SUU. We're grateful to them, for allowing us to get established. And so this is the first one. So it's kind of a big deal and for us it is and we're a little nervous, but I'll tell you what. This is a good band.” 

And what are some of the songs they will be playing to give tribute to SUU? Shirts gave us a partial rundown. “We decided to do a tribute to SUU, to kind of thank the Music department and Doctor Lambert and the Wind Symphony  for, you know, letting us share the stage with them. Then we decided to kind of the university in general. We're having a little bit of everything (that) is Thunder related, the titles, John Phillips, who's Thunderer, will open the concert and Henry Fillmore's Rolling Thunder, which is it just cooks. Trombones hate it. Well, some of them love it because it's so much fun. It's a trombone feature.” 

Sounds like a lot of fun this Wednesday night, and maybe a little rowdy. As I mentioned, don’t worry about paying because it’s a free concert. You can get more information about the concert and the band at their website. 

A great evening with a community band. Sounds like a bit of a time gone by. Now, we just need an ice cream social. 

You can hear our segment with Steve Shirts below.