Burlington Iowa Municipal Band

The Burlington Municipal Band plays a one hour concert each week during the summer. Most of our concerts take place at the band shell in beautiful Crapo Park, overlooking the Mississippi River. While the band concerts begin at 7:30 PM, there is occasionally other entertainment preceding the concert, and families are encouraged to come early to enjoy the fine summer evening in the park.

Occasionally inclement weather forces the cancellation of our concerts. News of concert cancellations is broadcast on a number of local radio stations. Concert cancellations will also be posted here on this web site. Is the concert likely to be rained out? Check weather radar here.

Each year, the band has openings for a few musicians. If you are interested in becoming a member of the Burlington Municipal Band, contact Mark Eveleth by telephone at (319) 753-6900 or by e-mail at evelethm@mchsi.com.

The Burlington (Iowa) Municipal Band is a community concert band which has served and enriched the life of this city for seventy-five years. The band's first concert was presented in Crapo Park in May of 1927 after the citizens of Burlington had expressed the desire that such a band be formed. The band's roots extend back to the nineteenth century since it was formed through the combining of the existing Orchard City Band and the privately operated Fischer's Band under the leadership of J. Henri Fischer, a prominent musician of the era.

The band today enjoys a membership from a wide variety of backgrounds. The band contains homemakers, physicians, music teachers, business men and women, ministers, retired people, college students, and a few outstanding high school musicians. All share the common enjoyment of playing their instruments and providing the community with a wholesome family activity.

With continued support from the City of Burlington, the Municipal Band continues to perform free Sunday evening concerts in Crapo Park during the summer months. These concerts are presented from 7:30 until 8:30 P.M. at the Crapo Park Bandshell, located on Grandview Drive within the park. This site provides concert goers a magnificent view of the Mississippi River and the Illinois farmlands spread below, and a wide lawn where listeners can choose to sit on park benches provided near the bandshell, or bring their own lawn chairs or blankets, perhaps to sit near the illuminated Foehlinger Fountain. The concerts are well attended by people of all ages, and many visitors to Burlington make it a point to return each summer to hear at least one concert.

This website is now maintained by members of the Burlington Municipal Band.

We thank the staff at the Burlington Public Library for the original site design.

Questions and/or comments can be directed to -- webmaster@muniband.org

The music will be chosen from among the following selections: "Walking in the Sunshine" by Roger Miller; "The Whistling Bobby" by Pete Alman; "Hands Across the Sea" by Sousa; "Commando March" by Samuel Barber; "The Footlifter March" by Henry Fillmore; "Annie Get Your Gun" by Irving Berlin, arranged by Erik Leidzen; "Dry Bones" arranged by Paul Yoder; "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" by Thomas Dorsey, arranged by Robert W. Smith; "Gonna Fly Now" -- the theme from the motion picture "Rocky" -- by Bill Conti, Carol Connors and Ayn Robbins; "Little Boy Lost" from the motion picture "Pieces of Dreams" by Michel Legrand, arranged by Jerry Brubaker; "Saxie Pike Quickstep" by Alanzo Bond, arranged by Kenton Scott; and our traditional closing march, "The Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Philip Sousa.

We hope that you will take the opportunity to support live music provided by many musical organizations in the Burlington Area during the fall, winter and spring months. Members of the Municipal Band participate in or direct many of these groups, and we would love to see you. These groups include the school bands, orchestras and choirs in Burlington and surrounding communities as well as the Southeast Iowa Symphony, Southeast Iowa Band, Bel Canto Chorale, South Hill Brass, Southeast Iowa Brass Quintet, and the Southeast Iowa Woodwind Quintet. You may often find band members directing or participating in the pit bands of the Players Workshop and/or area school musical productions as well.

We wish to thank the Burlington Fine Arts League. Their generous support has allowed us to purchase a new microphone and stand, enhancing the sound quality for our audience. We also wish to thank Jean Burgus for her generous contribution to the band, made in memory of Harold Burgus. Her gift has been used to purchase new music.

Note from the webmaster: We update this web site at least once a week during our summer concert season. Since the program for each Sunday concert is finalized at our rehearsal on Monday evening, we generally post the week's update sometime on Tuesday. Unfortunately, if you are viewing this page on a Monday, what follows will undoubtedly be the information for YESTERDAY'S concert.

The conductor this week will be Oak Street Middle School band director Marcia Korb. Regular members of our audience know that our conductors often select their music based on a "theme." Marcia tells us that her theme this week is an unusual one: "Useful Body Parts." We can always count on Marcia to be creative!

This week's conductor, Marcia Korb, is band director at Oak Street Middle School. Marcia regularly plays flute in the band, as well as performing with the Southeast Iowa Symphony, Southeast Iowa Band, and the Southeast Iowa Woodwind Quintet.

The second-to-last selection listed above deserves special mention. The arranger, Kenton Scott, is brother of band member and percussionist David Scott. Kenton plays in a "Civil War" style band (a band which plays authentic Civil War era instruments) in Pennsylvania. The Saxie Pike Quickstep is a Civil War era piece, named for a colorful drum major of a New Hampshire regimental band, and is one which is performed in its original form by Kenton's band. After a concert at which the piece was performed, a listener asked Kenton to arrange it for modern instruments so his community band, The Rohrersburg Band, could perform it. Kenton complied with the request, and the music which you will hear is the result. Although the music was written for the Rohersburg Band, we believe that our performance will be the first for this modern arrangement, and thus, will be the premier performance. We thank Kenton for sharing this interesting bit of Americana with us.