Hello all, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, proudly brought to you by Croc
Conceptic for this June 23rd, 2025. Have your host James here. We're welcome
into on the phone line, I should say. Our great friend Keith Olson, band director
of the Wisconsin Rapids City Band. Keith, good to talk to you again.
Hey, it's always great to be back with you guys. I know we normally do this
earlier in the season, but I'm so happy that we were able to make this
winding work as we're getting the season gone. Yeah, it's it's it's it's Pete
now we're Keith and I were kind of joking. It's a bit of a tradition around here
having you guys on and talking about the great schedule you got lined up. I want
to get into that in a moment, but before we do to those that may not be
familiar with the Wisconsin Rapids City Band, I think it has one of the most
interesting histories of anything around in our area. Can we touch on that a
little bit Pete Keith? Yeah, so the city band itself is over 165 years
old and it's it's one of the longest running city bands in the country not
just in the state of Wisconsin. So I'm I'm super proud to be to be the music
director for the group. This is my I think my 10th season and it's it's
shaped enough to be a really cool season. I'm looking forward to getting
the rest of it underway. It's when you when I hear that number and you know
I'm looking at the website right now, you can go to wrcityband.org to see
what I'm seeing. That number just stands out so big to me to think of an
organization to think of something going around that long. It's always
impressive, but then when you think about it being a city band, I think that adds to
it. And then if you don't mind, I want to talk about the type of members that
are a part of this band, Keith, because there's so many local people that I
think people will know and also just great individuals of our community that
come together for this. Yeah, it's a very wide variety of people. We
were just checking last week after our first concert. I try and do this during
the first rehearsal and forgot to do it this year. So after the concert last
week, I was kind of asking around some of the some of the high school kids that
play with us. And I believe our youngest member this year is 15 years and
three months old. Yeah, our oldest member is just had an 80th birthday.
Oh, that's the man is that cool. Yeah, it's really cool to see how the the
young kids interact with the with the older folks in the band and and how they
they can make music together. It's just really cool to see in the watch. And then
we have a ton of retired or active band directors. We have a number of new
people that have moved into the area that have heard about us and asked if they
can join the band. And of course, we welcome them with open arms to come in and
play. We have we have people that are doubling on their other instruments in the
band instead of what their primary instrument might be. It's just it's a really
cool experience. And I think the fact that we rehearse the music a couple
hours before the concert and then we play right away Tuesday night at Robinson
Park typically is is another really interesting aspect of the piece. A lot of
people in the audience don't realize that the band has basically had the music
and looked at it just two hours prior to the show. Yeah, that just performance
wise, that stands out to me so much. I think that's so amazing. It accredited
everybody involved in pulling that off. And you guys it's so much fun. And you guys
had your first show of the year already, right? We did last Tuesday was our was
our opening night. And we did dedicate that show to our longtime bassoon and
and more recently piccolo player in the band Rob Case. He passed away very
suddenly a couple of weeks ago and and we had just found out about it the
Friday before that that show. So it was it was a little bittersweet. We knew Rob
would not join us this year. He was of declining health. But to not have him in
the audience and to not have him on stage with us this year was I made it a
little bit real. So it was a little bittersweet that first show. Yeah, I feel for
you and everybody involved and certainly his friends and family. I would
imagine it is probably the best way to honor him though. What you guys did I
think it sounds like you did a really nice job of honoring him. Yeah, it
absolutely was our our board president James Abel got some pictures of that
and we left an empty chair with a piccolo on it on stage for the for the
concert. And those are up on our Facebook page if you wanted to see those
maybe read a little bit about Rob. I didn't post a lot there because my my personal
relationship with him was very long and I could have taken a long time to take
it up on a lot of Facebook space to write about Rob. But yeah, it was it was a
nice way, very fitting way to start the season. Good to hear and do me a
favor and say hi to Mr. Zoppel when you get a chance for me. I haven't seen him
in ages. I want to talk about I will do that. Thank you. I wanted to touch on
your guys's you know season and the events you have the schedule that you have
coming up. One of them is going to be this Tuesday on the 24th. I see that you
guys going to be having some special guests joining you. Yeah, we are really
excited to be bringing in the 132nd Army Guard Band out of Madison again for
this week's concert. I I initially wanted them a little later in the season if
we could have gotten them. But this was the only night they had available and they
were so excited to come back to the PAC that they made room in their schedule.
This was this was our option. So we took it. It's going to be an incredible show.
They bring in their concert band as well as a little jazz and rock group. The
concert is sponsored by some good friends of mine on TCR metal and tool
and later metal handling and and stamping out of Nikusa and the one of the
owners of the company is actually going to play lead-out with us on the
concert this week. So and the other owner he's out of town this week but he's
also one of our horned players and all of his kids play horn in the ensemble.
So it's going to be it's going to be a pretty cool pretty cool night. Yeah,
it's going to be a great time and the way that any time you have a military
band that you get to hear or be around or anything cannot encourage people to
take it in enough not only to pay respect to these individuals but they're
incredible. They're incredible. They always sound great. Yeah, they are they are
in the upper echelon of of performers in not just in the country but in the
world and this group is no exception. They are phenomenal and they're so easy to
work with. Other than the DOD email systems don't always like us civilian but we've
managed to work through that but the folks are just so much fun to work with
and they're so reliable and I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. Is the next
event on the calendar the 4th of July event? After yes so after the P.A.C.
performance with 130 seconds then we will be we'll have a Tuesday night off from
Robinson Park and we will be down at Centralia on Friday the 4th and that's our
our usual show down there. We start at seven I believe for that one instead of
seven thirty to allow everybody to kind of get out of the way or go and enjoy
the fireworks and that's going to also be a really neat neat show and I always
look forward to that one a lot. Yeah it's always a special one and then is it
pretty much every Tuesday going forward the rest of the summer for you guys
over at Robinson Park? Yep the rest yep the rest of the summer is going to be
at Robinson Park barring any weather. The July the 8th is our usual show as is
the 15th July 22nd is our annual dance concert and the sponsor for that is a
local swing group the swing doctors 17 piece big bands they not only
sponsors but they come and split the concert with us so they're all the city
band will play four dance teams or so and then the swing doctors take over and
play the rest of the concert so if you like the swing dance you should come
out that night we'll have dance floor all swept off at Robinson and you can
dance along. That is going to be a blast as it is all summer long over Robinson
Park one of my favorite places in this whole world that's going to be a blast
over there you're gonna have that wonderful city the band shall take in these
things great acoustics over there and a wonderful area to be able to take
in a concert. Yeah it's it's a lot of fun that's one of my favorite ones I play
with the swing doctors and have for 30 years that we've been around and so I
always look forward to that one because I get to direct four teams or so and
then and then I also get to play so that's that's one of my favorite shows
every year and the swing doctors keep insisting on sponsoring and coming and
playing so until they stop insisting on doing it I'm gonna keep asking. That's
awesome. It's it's always awesome to talk with you Keith. We don't get to we
don't get to talk with you nearly enough. Keep in mind the door is always open for
you guys. We'd love to talk again real soon. If people have follow-up questions
they'd like to know more. How can they reach you Pete Keith? Well they can check
in with us on Facebook. We will be trying to post stuff a couple times a week
as to what's going on. You know right through our our final concert is August
5th and that's our big theme concert. We also call it our benefit concert and
this year's theme is colors so we're gonna do a number of tunes related to
colors. Colors of the wind from Bocahnes. Black is the color of my true love's
hair from false. Sorry not holst. The composer is going to slip my mind right
now. I know. Yeah it'll it'll come to me and then I'll call you guys back. But
we also purchased a new tune for this show for that final show. It's actually a
three-piece suite by Robert W Smith and it has three pieces entitled Red, Yellow,
and Blue and it's it's a really cool piece that'll probably be an
exposure for that show. That'll be a good one. Yeah it's gonna be a great
great season. I'm really looking forward to it. We are too and I have to let you in
the audience. I have to apologize real quick. Do you know Pete Ravel? I do. Okay I
thought you might. So I'm working on messaging Pete back to get him on a show
and I apologize that I've called you Pete a couple of times Keith. I'm so sorry.
I don't know if you caught that or not but I was I was in the middle of that and I
guess I just did a musician thing there. I apologize bad. But it's that's okay.
I if you're gonna confuse me with Pete Ravel I will take that. Always always
good talk with you man. Don't be a stranger. We'll talk stop by any time and we'll
talk again real soon. Thanks for the time. Cool. Thank you so much for the on-air
stuff. We really appreciate it. Have a great season. Thank you too. And thank you
everybody for joining us for another edition of Rapids Report proudly brought
to you by Crocatseptic here at WFHR.
