Mat-Su Concert Band to play holiday favorites Friday

WASILLA — The Mat-Su Concert Band is back again this year with its holiday concert slated for Friday evening.

“We’re going to have a concert of holiday songs and they will recognize most of them, I think,” the band’s conductor, Gleo Huyck, replied when asked what folks should expect if they attend. “They may not have heard our arrangements of them.”

The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. at Teeland Middle School.

Huyck said the band is filled with all sorts of people ages 14 to 80.

“It’s a 60-piece band and it’s the oldest and largest musical group in the Valley. Next year will be our 30th anniversary,” Huyck said.

He said that band members are recent high school graduates, music teachers, lawyers, journalists, doctors — a cross-section of the Mat-Su community. Some have played professionally with military bands or various orchestras.

“We draw from the Valley and we have a few musicians who come out from Anchorage that play with us,” Huyck said. “We have a really good instrumentation in the band and it’s a very mature concert band.”

At its start in 1984, the band had a dozen members and practiced in a Wasilla elementary school that has since been converted into city hall.

“The band was organized as the only community marching band in Alaska, marching in all of the parades,” according to the band’s website. “Deferring to the members’ wishes (and to save wear and tear on members’ knees) approximately three years later the band was reorganized as a concert band.”

Huyck took over the conductor’s baton in 2008. He’s performed in numerous groups locally and is a trained trumpeter. Though it was once organized under the auspices of Mat-Su College, the band is now a standalone nonprofit.

The band is always looking for new members and could use clarinetists, baritone saxophonists, bassoonists, trumpeters and English horn players. There’s also always an open spot for harpists and string bassists, but those particular musicians are hard to come by.

“We do require that people play at least at a high school level, play grade 3 music or above,” Huyck said. “We require that most people play some at home too so they can learn the music outside of our rehearsals.”

The band performs at four concerts each year and practices a few times in between. Monday was the dress rehearsal for Friday’s show.

“If they’ve played before and are interested in getting back into playing their instrument we would welcome them,” Huyck said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.