The Oyster Bay-East Norwich Community Band is returning to its historical roots in the village this summer. The location of the band’s Summer Lawn Concerts will be moved from their usual location in front of Oyster Bay High School a little further west on East Main Street.
Because of brick and sidewalk repair work to the high school, that venue is not available this season. Two neighboring churches have graciously offered their grounds for summer concerts, the First Presbyterian Church and Christ Church.
“Special thanks are due to, respectively, to Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Prey and Rev. Peter Casparian, for extending such warm welcomes,” says Stephen Walker, the band’s director.
Both of the churches extending their hospitality to Oyster Bay this summer also share a connection with the life of Theodore Roosevelt. The First Presbyterian Church was the church which Theodore Roosevelt attended with his family as a youth when they would come out from New York City and rent a summer home in Oyster Bay. Christ Church was the church to which Theodore Roosevelt and his family belonged throughout his entire adult life. And it was outside there, on April 4, 1913, that the Oyster Bay Band positioned itself to serenade the bride, Ethel Roosevelt Derby and her new husband, Dr. Richard Derby, having been asked to play by the ex-president himself.
This summer’s Wednesday evening lawn concerts will be presented on July 16 and 23, on the lawn between Christ Church and the church rectory. Performing at this location is an historic homecoming for Oyster Bay’s band musicians even pre-dating the Roosevelt years. For it was at that spot that first mention in print (The Long Islander, June 28, 1850) was made of an Oyster Bay Band performance. The area was known as Academy Yard because it was adjacent to the Oyster Bay Academy, a private school in the 1800s. Today the building serves as the rectory of Christ Church. Thus, fittingly, local band musicians will be performing exactly where their forbears did, 164 years later.
The schedule of performances is as follows: July 16 and July 23 on the grounds of Christ Church (raindates: July 17 and July 24). All performances begin at 8 p.m. and end approximately at 9:15 p.m. The audience is asked to bring lawn chairs, blankets and music-loving friends.
This year’s repertoire will include Americana such as Tales of Sea and Sail, Broadway show tunes such as selections from Bye Bye Birdie, film score medleys such as Pixar Magic and lovely classical ballads such as Claude Debussy’s Reverie. The band’s performers are comprised of a wide cross-section, ranging from teenage musicians to players who have been enjoying sharing their music with the community for decades.
