Coast Guard Band News
Academy Concert: "Fair Winds" on May 5th
Come enjoy a performance featuring multiple soloists from within our ranks under the baton of Commander Adam Williamson. Chief Musicians Kelly Hurrell and Greg Case perform their final concert with the Coast Guard Band and celebrate their retirement from the service.
The concert opens with the exhilarating “Variations from the Northern Sea” by Yasuhide Ito. Mason Bates’ exuberant concerto for percussion and winds, Sideman, follows, featuring percussionist Chief Musician Nathan Lassell. Chief Musician Kelly Hurrell and Musician 1st Class Steven Zhang are featured solo clarinetists in Felix Mendelssohn’s virtuosic Concert Piece No. 2. The concert concludes with Leoš Janáček’s vigorous Sinfonietta.
"Voices Join Forces" on April 21st
Come enjoy a theatrical performance featuring your favorite vocal works from opera, Broadway, and the movies under the baton of Commander Adam Williamson. We welcome tenor, vocalist Musician 1st Class Ryan Connelly from the United States Navy Band, who will share the spotlight with the Coast Guard Band’s soprano, Musician 1st Class Allison Landstedt in this celebration of vocal music.
The program starts with a salute to opera, featuring the Overture to Marriage of Figaro and classic arias by Mozart and Puccini. Bernstein’s extraordinary “Overture to Candide” is next, followed by a medley of duets from the musical Jekyll & Hyde. Alto saxophonist Chief Musician Greg Case is the featured soloist in selections from the modern work Solace: A Lyric Concerto, and the performance comes to a fantastical conclusion with a fairy tale medley of Disney favorites.
March Concert "Everything Under the Moon"
On Sunday, March 24 at 2:00 p.m. in Leamy Hall at the United States Coast Guard Academy, the United States Coast Guard Band presents a free concert, "Everything Under the Moon.” Come enjoy an adventurous performance of music that spans from dreamy to vivacious under the baton of Commander Adam Williamson. We welcome New London NAACP Vice President Tamara Lanier as guest speaker, and Chief Warrant Officer Jeffrey Spenner hosts a pre-concert talk from 1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The program celebrates modern works by a diverse array of composers. The high-spirited “Fanfare Politeia” by Kimberly Archer opens the concert, followed by Sousa’s “The Gridiron Club March.” The soothing "Sleep and Repose: The Coming of Light” from Roshanne Etezady’s Anahita contrasts Ginastera’s thrilling “Danza Final” from Estancia. Next on the program is a set of love songs by Steven Bryant and Antonín Dvořák featuring soprano Musician 1st Class Allison Landstedt. The concert comes to a jazzy, soulful conclusion with Kevin Day’s Concerto for Wind Ensemble.
Coast Guard musician’s work transcends boundaries in Peace Notes
by Cmdr. Krystyn Pecora, External Affairs, U.S. Coast Guard Academy
Traveling more than 7,000 miles away from New London, Connecticut, to Chennai, India, Petty Officer First Class Meera Gudipati, one of the U.S. Coast Guard Band’s co-principal flutists, has learned first-hand how music can be a universal language through her continued work with the South Asian Symphony Foundation.
Gudipati received an invitation from the former Indian Ambassador to the United States and Indian Foreign Secretary, Nirupama Rao, to participate in the South Asian Symphony Orchestra concert, Peace Notes. This event was created in an effort to bring the people of Indo-Pacific countries together to perform a concert in India as part of a peace mission.
As part of this mission, Gudipati worked with musicians from eight nations throughout southern Asia through both musical instruction and cultural exchanges. During the nine-day visit during summer 2022, she noted the musicians “formed relationships through music” as they collaborated with music as their common language.
Gudipati commented how this experience allowed the musicians to connect with a country they typically only see in the news, enabling them to connect to the people through their respective experiences. She also took the opportunity to get in touch with her own Indian heritage by getting fitted for her first sari, which she recently put on for her grandmother.
Overall, Gudipati said the musical venue allowed the participants to “focus on similarities beyond historical conflict,” and appreciated how the opportunity helped her better understand the “infrastructure and education in South Asia.”
The concert itself brought together a wide range of musical pieces from the works of Johannes Brahms to compositions familiar in Indian pop culture. “Making music with such diversity is a feat of its own,” remarked Gudipati. Yet an experience such as this, where a diverse team of international musicians collaborated together for a cohesive concert, demonstrated how music can transcend boundaries, even language.
This program is just one of many cultural opportunities that Gudipati has participated in as part of the U.S. Coast Guard Band for the past four and a half years. Charged with promoting goodwill for the U.S. Coast Guard and the nation, the Coast Guard Band has a long history of performing internationally. Most notably, they were the first American military band to perform in the former Soviet Union in 1989. “The people are so great in this organization,” she remarked emphatically when discussing her travels and experiences playing with the band in venues such as the White House.
Article shared from: Coast Guard musician’s work transcends boundaries in Peace Notes > United States Coast Guard > My Coast Guard News (uscg.mil)