POMONA >> The Pomona Concert Band will present its annual Christmas concert, “A Christmas Festival,” on Friday at the Palomares Park Community Center, 499 E. Arrow Highway.
The 7:30 p.m. concert sponsored by the city will be full of classics to celebrate the holiday season and Santa Claus will be there for kids. The concert is free to the public and refreshments will be served.
The Pomona Host Lions Club will send Santa Claus, who will collect unwrapped toys for the Santa-Cop Project sponsored by the Pomona Police Department. The Lions will also collect canned food for the Beta Center at Hope Partners. They will also collect used prescription eyeglasses.
The concert will be under the direction of musical director and conductor Linda W. Taylor and assistant director Dr. Jorge Garcia. The color guard for the evening will be under the leadership of Air Force Sr. Master Sgt. (ret.) Heriberto Feliciano. The master of ceremonies for the evening will be Edmund Fry of the Rose Tree Cottage in Pasadena.
The concert will include many holiday favorites and include a sing-a-long with the audience.
It will feature a Men’s Chorus, made up of members the band, to sing “Ave Maria” by Franz Biebl. The chorus is composed by Steve Collins, Lucas Critchfield, Brent Decker, Jorge Garcia, Isaac Gonzalez, Tom Laffey, and Ray Stevens.
In addition, the band will play “A Christmas Festival” by Leroy Anderson, “A Vaughan Williams Christmas,” “Candlelight Carol” by John Rutter, “A Festival of Alfred Burt Carols” by Alfred Burt, “Wishing You A Merry Christmas” by William Rhodes, with Isaac Gonzalez singing “O Holy Night,” “Westminster Carol” by James Hosay, “Cowboy Christmas” by Jeff Simmons, and “In The Christmas Mood” by John Wasson.
Band members come from Pomona and more than 20 surrounding communities to make music together. The Pomona Concert Band was founded by G. Stanton Selby in 1947 as part of a local Pomona American Legion Post. The Band has represented the City of Pomona in countless events and performances over the years, including tours of Europe and Japan in 1985 and 1988. The band will represent the city again in April as they have been invited to perform at the Association of Concert Bands Convention in Sacramento.
For more information: pomonaconcertband.org.
