It was more than a typical high school band concert. It was an event to remember.
One hundred years of music and memories flowed over the audience in Petersen Auditorium Saturday night as the Kewanee High School Band, in black tie and formal attire, celebrated its centennial year in style.
The concert is an annual fundraiser for the Kewanee Schools Foundation with a goal this year of $7,000 for a portable PA system for the marching band.
The evening began with a gala pre-show dinner for sponsors and VIPs in H.F. Brockman Gymnasium where tables were decorated with musical instruments, marching band caps and copies of the sheet music for the original school song and pages from the 1923 and 1924 Kewanites with the stories of how the school song and high school band came to be.
The concert that followed in the auditorium was open to the public and featured the 70-member KHS Symphonic Band under the direction of Alex Binek and Brittany Krohn. They performed a contemporary program of music composed since 2011 and featured an original composition by 2019 KHS graduate Dylan Wolfe, written in honor of the 100th anniversary of the band. Wolf titled the composition “On, Forever On,” the first three words of the school song, written in 1923 by KHS seniors Dorothy McGrath and Forrest Keller.
Wolf earned a dual bachelor’s degree in classical voice and composition from the University of Illinois and now lives in New York City where he is a Master’s Candidate for Classical Composition at the Manhattan School of Music.
The second half of the concert featured the 100th Anniversary All-Star Wind Ensemble which included 45 student musicians, faculty, band alumni, and friends of the band playing music composed at least 100 years ago. Selections included George Gershwin’s moving “Rhapsody in Blue,” featuring senior band member Willow Marshall on clarinet and junior bandsman Brennyn Ford playing the familiar piano part. Gershwin wrote the popular song in 1924, the same year the Kewanee High School Band was born.
The “all-star” portion of the concert also featured a march written by John Philip Sousa in 1901, “Invincible Eagle,” guest conducted by Eric Holloway, KHS band director from 2008 to 2014, now director of bands at Bartlett High School, near Chicago. Holloway said in returning to Kewanee for the first time in 10 years, he found some things changed, but some the same, including the fantastic support the band receives from the school and the community. Retired band director Jim Blucker, who served as band and vocal director from 1978 to 2005, was also invited but unable to attend.
The concert concluded with a rousing rendition of Kewanee High School’s Fight Song, “On, Ever On Kewanee High School,” Which brought the audience to its feet.
The origin of the band goes back to the first semester of the 1923-24 school year, according to newspaper accounts from the time. KHS had a new school song, with music by 1923 graduates Dorothy McGrath and words by Forrest Keller, but initially, “Fight Songs,” were primarily written to inspire athletes. In other settings, they were sung with piano accompaniment.
Samual L. Flueckiger was hired in 1923 for a position listed with the faculty in the yearbook only as “Music,” but by the next school year, he saw the need for both a band and an orchestra and set about organizing both from “humble beginnings.”
According to the 1924 Kewanite, “Because of a greatly awakened interest in instrumental work through the organization of the local Boy Scout Band last fall, it has been possible to start this fine band in high school. Although most of the players have been studying their instruments less than a year, they have made excellent progress, and their combined efforts are showing up in a very creditable ensemble.” The 18-member band made its debut at the Spring Festival of Music on April 25, 1924. Flueckiger also wrote a band arrangement of McGrath and Keller’s school song which was tweaked in 1947 by band director L. J. Bert.
One of the highlights of the band’s 100-year history took place in June of 1965 when the community raised $10,000 to send the band and director Roy Schueneman to New York City where they performed at the 1965 World’s Fair…on, ever on Kewanee High School, toward the next 100 years.
