Ketchikan, Alaska - The Ketchikan Community Concert Band will present a festive holiday concert on Sunday, December 12 at 3:00 pm at the Ketchikan High School Auditorium. The performers will open their holiday concert with "Alaska's Flag", and continue with "Christmas Sketches", a unique arrangement by Sean O'Loughlin. Following is a suite for concert band entitled "Chesapeake" "inspired by the bountiful Chesapeake Bay and dedicated to all who live, work and find recreation on America's waterways".

Roland Barrett has written a thought-provoking composition entitled "Ghost Dances - Wounded Knee 1890", inspired by the massacre of 300 members of the Lakota Sioux tribe at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Barrett sets a solemn mood interspersed with agitation and tension, in a masterful musical setting of this great tragedy in American history.

Robert Sheldon was commissioned by the Band Association of Brandon, South Dakota  to write "The Lords of Greenwich", to honor Bruce Wilder, a band director there for thirty-three years. It is inspired by the music of Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams. "Quad City Stomp" by Michael Sweeney features the KCCB percussion section, the title referring to the Quad City area of northwest Illinois and southeast Iowa.

A most revered composer of orchestral and band music, including "The Planets", Gustav Holst composed the carols "In the Bleak Midwinter" (1904), "Lullay My Liking" (1919), and an arrangement of carols titled "Christmas Day" (1910). Douglas Wagner has produced a lovely arrangement in true Holst style.

The First United Methodist Church Handbell Choir will join the band in "Tidings!", which includes "O,Come All Ye Faithful", "He is Born", "Silent Night", and "Joy to the World".

Zo Elliott is the composer of "British Eighth", a march written for General Montgomery and the eighth army after a triumphant sweep across North Africa in which he defeated Rommel. The composers mentors include Nadia Boulanger and Leonard Bernstein.

The purpose of this next composition, "Our Yesterdays Lengthen Like Shadows", by Samuel Hazo, is to introduce one pitch ("Eb") at the beginning of the song, and then to disguise it throughout until the end, when the ensemble sings the note in unison. While the note may not always be detectable, the texture would be lacking and noticeably different without it.

"The Blue and the Gray" suite for band by Clare Grundman was written for the Centennial observance of the American Civil War. The arrangement includes "Battle Hymn of the Republic", "Marching Through Georgia", "Dixie", "The Bonnie Blue Flag", "The Yellow Rose of Texas", "Kingdom Coming", "Tenting Tonight" and "Aura Lee".

The basis for "Sing of Christmas" is Felix Mendelssohn's carol, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing", arranged by Douglas Court. The final piece on the program is "Jazz It Up", which covers swing, Afro-Cuban jazz and jazz-rock styles. "Sing, Sing, Sing", "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing", "La Suerte De Los Tontos", and the jazz-rock piece, "Jazz Police" by Gordon Goodwin are featured in this fun-filled arrangement by Victor Lopez.

Tickets are available at McPherson Music, The Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council, Parnassus, and at the door. The price is $10, and persons under the age of 18 are free. Raffle tickets will also be available at the door.

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