All right, say hello to Sean Del
Grosso. I'm saying that right.
Del Grosso, right? Yeah, you got that.
Okay. Good. I want to make sure.
Okay. The executive director of the
Racine Concert Band. And yes, we're
coming up to band time for the summer.
And there's one big difference this
year. We have to hit upon. It will
not be at the we're seeing zoo this
year. It's going to be at festival
park this year. So that's different
for everybody. And I know it's going to
take a long time to get used to because
you guys played at the the
amphitheater, the koanus amphitheater
for what 300 years, 400 years,
something like that. It was before.
I know it's before up the century,
at least. Yeah. I know it's before
electricity and before the car.
The the invention of the wheel.
I know it was the long time before
that. So you know, I actually have
the book that it's called the band
played on. Yep. And it was. Oh, I
I am so bad on names. And I know the
guy. He just passed away a couple of
years ago, but he was a good guy.
Del Aish. Del Aish. He was the the
conductor emeritus with the Racine
Concert Band. One of the nicest
human beings you will ever run into
in your entire life. And he put this
book on the history of the Racine
Concert Band. And what a history.
I mean, you guys had these big
wall in uniforms and one time out of
the high award those things in
marching parade. I think I think we
wanted to match the animals at the
zoo. We wanted to, you know, be nice
and warm like the bears. Oh man.
And they said the marching down
Main Street. There's actually a
couple of pictures of my house in
the book with some strange man sitting
on the porch. Because it was
taken before I own the house. Sure.
But okay, so when does the concert
start this year? It always starts
around the 4th of July. So when does
it start? Yeah, so we're going to
start right on July 6th there.
All right, on July 6th, which is a
Sunday night. Now I heard room with
that the concert are all going to
be the same time this year. There's
not going to be any 7 or 7 30 or
6 30. Are they going to start at
the same time? Yeah, they're all
going to be at 7 o'clock. We were
kind of taking advantage of, you
know, kind of making this big
switch. And we're trying to
face away from the sun this year.
That's kind of one of the big
things, you know, let let the
lights do their job and let the
sun kind of go on the other way.
So we're able to set everything at
the same time because we don't have
to worry about the sun in our eyes.
I just though I want you guys when
you before you got started, you're
practicing everybody wearing
sunglasses because I don't know how
you're I'm just learning the piano
now. And I just learned how to do
work with my right hand and left
hand at the same time. And that is
tough ridding those two scales. I
don't know how you guys do it. I don't
know how to do this stuff. Yeah, I
I gave up on the piano after,
you know, I could barely use hand
use the right handwriting, you know.
Yeah, you know, I look at when I'm
up there and seeing I look sometimes
at the music that Mark Eichner
does and he's got everybody's
music in front of him like 16 or 17
bars of me. I don't know. He follows
it. I know he doesn't. He follows
everybody. I don't know. I I used to
be a conductor and just
just getting ready to turn those
pages, you know, you got to turn them
so often because they have all
that music. It's crazy. Well,
what's difficult for him is he's
outside. And sometimes it's windy
so he's got these giant lead
weights. He puts on the paper. So
to turn it, he's got to lift the
lead weight up first. And he's
got to get that hand go. Do you
actually pay attention to the
conductor? I always wondered that.
I so usually what I like to do is
as a musician, I like to. I like
to have them in like a little
almost like a little viewfinder in
a corner, almost like a postage
stamp and just kind of see where
his beat is to kind of keep
keep together. Now what instrument
do you play? I play a lot of
instruments, string base, tuba,
trombone mainly in that area. What do
you play in the band though? Well,
I'm going to kind of be a rotating
switch hitter just to kind of
cover what bases we need tuba. I
think a lot and string base. But
you have no strings in this sort
in this band, right? So there's a
history in wind band music where
they'll involve a string base to
kind of not only fit in the low
base category, but also in
percussion. So it's kind of a
really a really unique thing to add
that not a lot of groups and
especially not groups outside will
add.
Hmm. Okay, good. Now here's
something I love about the band too.
We always have guest artists performing
or singing with the band and a lot
of them are saying someone's
year to year and it's just wonderful.
They do opera, they do Broadway
music, pop tunes, they do everything.
So who do you have on tap this year?
Well, interestingly, you should ask
when you were asking about who
who's who's going to be guest soloist
and what I play in the band because
I'm also singing the first concert.
Oh, really?
Yeah, I'm also an operatic trained
tenor. So I'm going to be singing a
little bit, but I don't know. We got a
lot of we got a lot of favorites.
Start out our concert with a nice, you
know, feel good for the July kind of
set. A lot of Americana tunes and we
got Ryan playing some trombone as well
as me doing some singing and we got
the R U S D lighthouse brigade.
They're they're a favorite. So we like
to bring them out. We like to support
support our schools. So that's going
to be our big July six concert.
Definitely want to focus on showing off
showing off our rooted in racing
our rooted in racing concert. One of
the things that we're really we really
feel strongly about is if it's vendors,
if it's our musicians, if it's
composers that we focus on, we like to
make sure that we keep it here in
racing. And so our August third
concert really connects with that
rooted racing and we got Russ
Johnson as our guest artist, our
rooted in racing guest artist this
year. But we have we have a
lot of different solos. Some that are
within the band. Some returning
singers, Doug Clemens on the 17th
doing some singing for us.
Some really great really great
styles there. But we got we got just a
whole whole huge set of people
coming in and sharing some great
music in the park. And Allison
Hall, I saw her. She's coming back,
right? Yep. Yeah, how about Greg
Berg? I'm trying to think of some of
the Greg Greg Berg had a had a prior
commitment. Oh, that's why I had to
pinch hit. So I'll try to I'll try to
what what's it? I'll try to bring
bring him out as much as possible.
Yeah, he's great. He's doing that
was a radio just jockey. He is also a
trained operatic singer. And here's
I can answer with you sing opera
in a foreign language. Do you know how
to speak that language or you just
memorize those particular words in
that language? Well, for me, I tend to
memorize the specific words. And then I
start to kind of get a feel for what
those words mean. Like kind of there's
a process, you know, where you're
kind of replacing words with the foreign
language words. And then you kind of
start to really kind of connect to
some of those words that you've sung
them, you know, a million times. I
do. I mean, I can't sing. So I mean,
it doesn't matter what language I can't
sing in any language. But when I say,
I used to watch Greg Berg up there
singing in in Italian. And I don't know
how we how we know the Italian
language or we just memorize those
particular words phonetically. I don't
know. Yes, some do. Some when you're
starting to sing in languages that are
really, I don't want to say out there
because I mean, everyone's languages,
you know, special to them. But when you
got a language that isn't using the
phonetic alphabet, isn't using common
Roman letters, it's, you know, that's when
you do follow that phonetic alphabet.
And yeah, it can be it can be difficult.
It's definitely a skill. I took a whole
class on it. We had a foreign exchange
student in here. And he's from Belgium.
And in Belgium, there are several
different languages. He knows has has to
know four of them. All people in Belgium
know four languages German, French,
Dutch, and English. You got to know four
languages. I mean, I took Spanish for
six years. All I know is the word
albundigas meatballs six years to
in college, foreign high school. And
I can't remember any of it. But yeah,
he said, if you live in Belgium, you
get in the world of languages because
it's cross paths, you know, depending
where you are. Everybody speaks a
different language. Whoa. Well, I mean,
you live you live by you live by Chicago
or you live by, you know, different
different cities. You may have to learn
a whole bunch of languages just, you
know, just that's lying. You know, a
lot of people have trouble with English.
Yeah, I hear my friends speak some
time. I said, let us that grab it.
The grammar's all rough. Okay, who
is some of the other? Well done thinking
of guest singers this year. Do you have
any of the guest singers listed there?
Yeah, we got we got Melissa.
Cardamon. Yeah, Mr. LeCardamon. Yeah.
He's he's going to be singing July 13th.
Genie Hatfield. Oh, yeah, 20th.
Darling Kelsey. Yeah, okay.
Doing some singing.
Um, and then we talked about Alison.
Well, I'm going to I'm going to mess up
this name because, you know, I haven't
gotten to meet any any of the
performers yet. I, you know, sent some
nice little emails, but I haven't met
anyone in person. So I'm looking
forward to meeting all these people.
What's what's the name? Uh, but uh,
I use you. All right, I'm not going to try it.
Yeah, I'm. Uh,
I don't know. I haven't met them again
in person, but I hope to soon.
Hey, I screwed up your name when I first
got on the phone. Hey, I screwed up my name
when I was, you know, kid too.
Okay, so we have a full schedule now.
The concerts start on July 6th to say.
When do they run through? Yeah.
They're going to go through, uh, believe.
August 17th. Wow. Okay. Yeah.
That's, I think it was later than last year.
Uh, it's going to be, uh, and that's going to be our, uh,
1,537th Reconcert. I know we, we announced the, uh,
the free concerts, uh, the number every, every time.
And of course, the contest will still be there, right?
For prizes trivia contests. Yep, we're working on,
we're working on putting all that together.
Uh, we got some, uh, great local establishments.
We stretched out a little bit further, um,
into kind of the regional area.
And, um, one of the things that we, uh,
really get to do is, um, so kind of moving back to our space.
Um, we're going to be at, uh, the, you know,
the park, we're going to be at that festival park, uh,
kind of complex. Um, and, uh, one, one of the great things is, um,
they, they kind of really gave us free reign as to, uh,
they're like any, anywhere the light touches, you know, like they say in line,
okay? Uh, we could pretty much perform.
So, um, one of the things that we get to do with that is, um,
we're really focusing on maximizing, uh,
maximizing our audience space, uh, really trying to give, uh,
give the audience as much as, uh, to have the best experience as possible.
And so, uh, one of the things that I wanted to go with that is, um,
I'm, I'm hoping for our, for our grand prize, uh,
to put together a VIP experience, uh, for, uh,
for a couple, uh, lucky winners for our grand prize, uh,
including, uh, you know, like, maybe I'll be there with like a big,
giant leaf fan waving them, you know,
I think it'd be pretty great.
How about this? Here's your special VIP experience.
You get to set up all the chairs and the risers and take them down after the concert.
You'll be the, well, you'll be eroding for the day.
Yeah, that's the, that's the backstage experience.
It'll expense the heavy lifting.
Well, this is great. I, I'm looking forward to it, uh,
conduct your Mark Eichner returning to conduct the band,
the receiving that concert band or the receiving municipal band goes into two names.
And it all kicks off July 6th.
Now it's going to be a festival park from now on, festival park.
Yeah.
And so, uh, I'm sure it'll be signing to the zoo just in case people, you know,
didn't know, bring your chairs, bring your chairs.
And, uh, this year, this concessions as well, food concessions.
Yeah, I'm, I'm really, I'm really excited about that.
I think that's, uh, going to be something that not only,
not only do we, uh, do we see some kickback from that, but mainly just because, you know,
it, it, it's great to have, have an experience.
We, we like to think almost like, uh, Revinia down south, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, really, really having, having something that, you know,
everybody can, in common.
We, for, for the longest time, we were asking people, hey, what are,
what are you eating before you get here?
Like, what are you, and, and now we can say, well, you're eating what,
what we're serving, you know, so we're, we're pretty, we're pretty excited.
I think it's just going to be something that's going to be, uh, a, a real draw for our patrons.
Okay, there we're seeing concert band concerts kick off on July 6th.
This year at festival park spread the word because it's at festival park from now on.
