Thursday`s performance by the Wheaton Municipal Band at Memorial Park will be filmed as part of a documentary about composer and band director John Philip Sousa that is being produced by WGBH, a public television station in Boston.
Wheaton`s band was one of four selected for inclusion in the documentary that will be released in the United States and in Europe in 1992, the 100-year anniversay of the founding of the Sousa band. The Marine Corps Band will also be featured as will community bands from Detroit and Allentown, Pa.
”That`s not bad company,” said Bruce Moss, music professor at Eastern Illinois University and the director of the 61-year-old Wheaton Municipal Band for the last 12 years.
William D. Revelli, 89, director-emeritus of bands at the University of Michigan, will be guest conductor of Thursday`s regular 8 p.m. performance and Wednesday`s 7 p.m. rehearsal. Both will be filmed in Memorial Park at Hale and Seminary Streets.
Revelli knew Sousa personally and has a reputation for the quality of his interpretation of Sousa`s music, according to Moss.
Moss said he first learned of WGBH`s interest in early summer when he got a telephone call that a producer would be scouting in the audience. Since learning of Wheaton`s selection for filming, Moss said, band members ”are pretty excited.”
The film will be part of a series titled ”The American Experience”
directed by Tom Spain, an Emmy-winning filmmaker.
