It’s not summer without the Fairfield Municipal Band

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Municipal Band is back after a year-and-a-half hiatus from public performances.

On Tuesday, the band performed its first of six outdoor concerts planned this year in Central Park. The band looked a little different, since the performers were not in the Ron Prill Bandstand but spread out along the nearby concrete floor to achieve better social distancing.

Band director Jim Edgeton said it felt good to perform for the public once again, something the band hasn’t done since its Christmas concert at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center in December 2019.

“We had a really nice-sized crowd, and that doesn’t always happen for the first concert of the year because word hasn’t gotten out yet,” Edgeton said.

Edgeton said Monday’s rehearsal revealed the band was a bit rusty from not having played together for so long, but luckily the performers learned their music quickly and put on a good show the following night. Edgeton said that’s often true for the first performance even in a normal year.

“I usually have them play easy songs for the first couple of concerts, and then the music gets harder as people get more in shape,” Edgeton said.

A few band members who have kept their skills sharp since the last concert are Gary Roth and Rodger Gillaspie, both charter members of the Fairfield Municipal Band when it began under director Ron Prill in 1988.

Roth and Gillaspie are members of the Fairfield Jazz Band, too, which will perform at the farmers market in Washington Thursday night. Roth is a member of the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra.

With so many opportunities to perform, Gillaspie and Roth made sure they kept their chops in shape by playing duets in Roth’s shop about every other week since the start of the pandemic. Though Roth’s main instrument is the clarinet, which he plays in the municipal band, he and Gillaspie play saxophone in the jazz band, and that’s what they practiced when they got together.

Roth jokes that the reason he has stuck with the municipal band, never missing a year of performances since it began, is that “nobody has asked me to quit.”

“When my wife gets upset because of all the rehearsals over the years, I say that at least it keeps me out of the bars,” Roth said with a laugh.

Roth said that the pandemic, far from making him rusty, allowed him to sharpen his musical skills, especially on the piano.

“I’m a hack on piano, but during COVID, my playing improved a lot,” he said. “The piano is more entertaining to play by yourself than a clarinet. I don’t play the piano publicly because there are too many really good pianists out there, but I can hack away in my own living room and enjoy it.”

The municipal band features performers of all ages, from longtime members like Roth and Gillaspie to high school students. Seven Fairfield High School students are performing in the band this summer: Grant Ward on percussion, Claire Epperson on clarinet, her sister Erin on percussion, Lauren Kraemer on saxophone, Emma Winkelman on trumpet, and Clare Else and Claire Pettit on trombone.

Ward, who just completed his junior year at Fairfield, said playing in the municipal band is a different experience than playing in the high school band. The municipal band is smaller (about 42 people), so that means he only has two or three people in his percussion section compared to nine or 10 at the high school.

“I’ve been in the municipal band three years at this point, and it’s been a lot of fun every year,” Ward said. “Though originally I joined because my brother was in it when he was in high school, I’m happy I’ve stayed, and I’m excited to keep playing both this year and hopefully next year.”

The remaining dates for Fairfield Municipal Band concerts, which start at 8 p.m. Tuesdays in Central Park, are: June 22, June 29, (no concert on July 6 due to the Fourth of July holiday), July 13, July 20 and July 27.