News
SMC Brass Band, DUHS Choir Lead Off City Summer Concerts
Published on June 6, 2025 - 12 p.m.
Southwestern Michigan College Brass Band and Dowagiac Union High School’s Chamber Choir kicked off the 12 Thursday-evening “Music in the Park” concerts June 5 in the Dowagiac Library Event Pavilion, 206 Main St.
The free Thursday series co-sponsored by SMC, Lyons Industries, Honor Credit Union and MonaCo Cleaning Service, continues at 7:30 p.m. June 12 with Van Dyke Revue’s “Tribute to the Beatles.”
The rest of this summer’s schedule includes: June 19, Skyler Vincek, today’s country hits; June 26, Otsego Jazz Ensemble, high-powered big band; July 3, Skeletones, R&B, soul, blues and Motown; July 10, Rock RX, “your prescription for rock ’n’ roll”; July 17, The Lunar Octet, spicy Latin jazz; July 24, Touch of Texas, a variety of classic country at the Cruise-In car show; July 31, Allie Garland, soul, pop, jazz and requests; Aug. 7, Schlitz Creek, “bluegrass with some bite”; Aug. 14, Hurricane Reggae Band, “authentic and infectious island grooves”; and Aug. 21, Whiskey Retreat, “dynamic sounds of classic and Southern rock.”
Director of Bands Mark Hollandsworth’s musicians played the national anthem, then turned the program over to 2015 SMC graduate Hunter Schuur’s Chamber Choir.
Schuur’s singers opened with 2023’s “From the Start” by Iceland’s Laufey and for their finale, performed Queen’s operatic 1975 classic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Hollandsworth’s musicians sampled jazz, musicals and Hollywood movies.
SMC, which performed Wednesday night at Forest Glen Assisted Living, presented 1958’s “Cute” by Neal Hefti; George Gershwin’s “Summertime” from the 1935 opera “Porgy and Bess”; 1941’s World War II jump blues “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by the Andrews Sisters from the Abbott and Costello movie Buck Privates; 1965’s Oscar winner “The Shadow of Your Smile,” the love theme from The Sandpiper with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, by Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster; “Tonight” from 1961’s West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim; “Music of the Night” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 Phantom of the Opera; and 1991’s “Beauty and the Beast” by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken.
SMC closed with John Williams’ “Star Wars” theme.
The Brass Band, which usually plays at First United Methodist Church in December, combines college students, alumni, community members and active and retired music educators.
The British-style band features cornets; flugelhorn; alto horns pitched to E flat to sound like French horns; baritones; euphoniums; E-flat and B-flat tubas; trombones; and percussionists Carolyn Lyons Murray and Jon Comstock.
