Follow the music
6 to 9 p.m. Friday: Eau Gallie Arts District band shell, at Highland Avenue and Eau Gallie Causeway: Constellation Brass quintet performs as part of the First Friday open house event. Free.
8 p.m. Saturday: Riverfront Park, 401 Riveredge Blvd., Cocoa: the Brevard Symphony Orchestra performs the annual Herbert L. Schulman Memorial 4th of July Pops Concert. Free. Call 321-631-9075.
8:30 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday: Space Coast Regional Airport, Golden Knights Boulevard and U.S. 1, Titusville: Space Coast Pops performs at the “Red, White and Boom” celebration. Free. Call 321-267-3036. The event runs 5 to 9:30 p.m. and includes children’s activities, flyovers, aircraft, food vendors, fireworks and more.
From jazz to ragtime to patriotic to Tchaikovsky, if you don’t have a little music on your Fourth of July, your celebration won’t be all it can be.
“I think it’s incredibly important because every celebration we have is filled with music,” said Scott Apelgren, owner of the Eau Gallie music store The Horn Section. Apelgren, who plays the trumpet, is a member of Constellation Brass, a brass quintet performing from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday in the band shell of the Eau Gallie Arts District. Tonight is EGAD’s First Friday monthly open street party along the south end of Highland Avenue in Melbourne. The quintet also includes John Kuntz on trumpet, John Wilkerson on French horn, Catherine Leasure on trombone and Tom Waid on tuba. All but Kuntz are Brevard Community College music faculty members. Kuntz played with the Brevard Symphony for 30 years.
“We’ll be playing a mix of popular standards and patriotic songs, rags and polkas,” Apelgren said. “Mostly, we wanted to keep it very upbeat so people could have almost a feeling of a parade. A lot of foot-tapping music so they could enjoy themselves and get into the spirit of the Fourth of July.”
While the Constellation Brass performs Friday, Brevard’s two big music organizations — the Brevard Symphony Orchestra and the Space Coast Pops — perform free concerts Saturday evening. Both orchestras will perform an “Armed Forces Salute” in which veterans in the audience will be invited to stand during anthems from their branch of the armed forces. “That’s always very moving,” said Fran Delisle, BSO executive director. Additionally, each orchestra will perform the finale of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” during municipal fireworks shows. They both have patriotic music and a host of pops tunes, most notably that by movie music composer John Williams, on the program.
Here’s more about each event:
The Brevard Symphony Orchestra, which performs at 8 p.m. Friday at Riverfront Park in Cocoa, recognizes the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s lunar landing with a mix of news audio and classical music.
Speeches from Neil Armstrong, the liftoff audio and a speech by John F. Kennedy will play while the orchestra performs Strauss’ fanfare from “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (theme music to “2001: A Space Odyssey”).
The Space Coast Pops, which performs for the first time at Titusville’s “Red, White and Boom” celebration at the Space Coast Regional Airport, features vocalist Joan Taddie. She will sing patriotic tunes including “The Star Spangled Banner,” “God Bless the USA” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Before the Pops orchestra takes the stage, Christian rock band Tall Tree will perform beginning at 7:15 p.m. The Space Coast Pops, along with the Melbourne Municipal Band, performed for seven years at the Front Street Park festivities sponsored by the city of Melbourne. However, because of budget cutbacks, Melbourne is only presenting a fireworks display this year.
Contact Harbaugh at 321-242-3717 or pharbaugh@floridatoday.com.
