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 sometimes other entertainment preceding the concert, and families are encouraged to come early to enjoy the fine summer evening in the park.

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.

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.

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 were viewing this page on a summer Monday, what follows would undoubtedly be the information for YESTERDAY'S concert.

Regular visitors to this web site are aware that we are constantly looking for historical photographs and information relating to the early days of the Burlington Municipal Band and it's antecedents, the Orchard City Band and the Fischer Band. We sometimes wonder whether our efforts to chronicle the historical background of our band are reaching our intended audience. We were therefore gratified to receive a telephone call and follow up letter from Rosalie A. Hahn of Leavenworth, Kansas who had viewed this site's history page and who most graciously sent us the accompanying photograph and information about her husband's grandfather who had been a prominent member of the Fischer Band. (If you have viewed the photos elsewhere on this site you know that we previously had no information whatsoever concerning the names of the Fischer Band members.)

Mrs. Hahn tells us that Peter Hahn moved from Leavenworth, Kansas to Burlington to help start the Fischer Band. It seems likely that he may have been related to J. Henri Fischer, since Mrs. Hahn's husband's great grandmother's maiden name was Fischer. In our history page's photo of the Fischer Band, we believe that Peter Hahn is the cornet player third from the right side in the front row.

Peter Hahn of 516 South Fourth Street passed this morning at St. Francis Hospital. He was stricken with an attack of apoplexy last Sunday. Last evening the second stroke followed and from this visitation he did not rally. He had been in poor health for several years, but the end was not supposed to be so near. The death of Mr. Hahn is exceptionally sad, as only last week one of his children passed away, and it is supposed the shock of the little one's death may have hastened the passing of the father.

Mr. Hahn was born in Germany 49 years ago and came to his city about fourteen years ago, securing employment at the Northwestern Cabinet Co. as finisher. He was one of the most trusted employees of the concern and was well liked by his fellow employees and employers. He was perhaps better known as a member of Fischer's band and orchestra, joining these organizations when he arrived in the city. He was an excellent cornetist and was one of the factors in assisting Prof. Fischer build up his musical organizations to their present state of efficiency. He gained a large share of musical experience while a member of a regimental band in the United States regular army. Previous to coming to Burlington he visited many of the out of the way parts of the world, Australia, South Africa, etc., and had met with many queer experiences.

He is survived by his widow and six little children, who have the warm sympathy of scores of friends. He was a good husband and father and will be sadly missed by his family.

Mr. Hahn was a member of the N.P.L. and the arrangements for the funeral will be announced later.

For the second year in a row, we BEGIN our season with the annual Teddy Bear's Picnic concert. While the band concert will begin at the usual 7:30 P.M., Grade A+ will have many activities in the area of the band shell beginning earlier in the afternoon. Grade A+ is an organization which fights drug abuse, and we encourage you to support their very worthwhile efforts.

Our conductor for this concert will be Mark Eveleth, who plays trumpet with the band, and also leads the band of West Bulington High School. As is often the case with our Teddy Bear's Picnic concert, Mark has chosen a program filled with melodies familiar to children and their parents. Four of the pieces are associated with recent movies: Hedwig's Theme (from "Harry Potter"), by John Williams; The Best Years of Our Lives (Part 1) (from "Shrek"), by David Jaymes and Geoffrey Deane; Topsy Turvy (from "the Hunchback of Notre Dame"), by Alan Menken; and a medley of songs from Walt Disney's "Aladdin", also by Alan Menken, and arranged by Paul Jennings, including Arabian Nights, Friend Like Me, Prince Ali, and A Whole New World. Three other selections are drawn from the world of television: Rocky and Bullwinkle Strike Again, by Fred Steiner; Crimebusters (a medley featuring the themes from Dragnet, Mission: Impossible, Secret Agent Man, and Get Smart), again arranged by Paul Jennings; and TV Toons, arranged by John Higgins, featuring the Theme Song of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Inspector Gadget, and The Simpsons. Rounding out the concert will be Circus Days, a galop by Karl King; A Holiday Sing-Along (guess which holiday), arrangements by John Moss; and our traditional closing march, The Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa. Of course, during The Teddy Bear's Picnic, by John W. Bratton, children of all ages will be invited to march with their teddy bears.