Submitted photo / Josh Trolio The Youngstown Area Community Concert Band, led by conductor Joseph Pellegrini, will perform Saturday in Wean Foundation Park as part of its 40th anniversary season.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Area Community Concert Band is celebrating 40 years of making music in 2023.

The group’s musicians live in Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Portage counties, and the band also has attracted players from western Pennsylvania over the years.

According to its conductor Joseph Pellegrini, Bill Gretsinger and others started the band to give area musicians an opportunity to continue playing their instruments in a conventional concert band setting.

Many were active musicians playing in multiple groups. Others played instruments in high school and college and were looking for ways to remain active musically.

“That’s what the community band was all about, trying to make something available to students when they graduated from high school who don’t pursue music in college,” said Ed D’Angelo of Middletown. “It’s a place to still pursue music if you love music.”

D’Angelo, who joined after the first rehearsal, and Doug Lewis are the two members who’ve been with the group from the beginning. Joe Purser was its first conductor, followed by Mike Ferraro.

“In the very beginning, it was quite large,” D’Angelo said. “After the first director resigned, a lot dropped out because they were actually students of his in Liberty. The band pared down to 35 or 40, but the nucleus stayed, and it’s grown back to what it is now — about the largest it’s ever been. That kind of thrills us in that regard.”

CHANCE GIG

Now in his 33rd year, Pellegrini has been conductor for 80 percent of the band’s history, and it’s a gig that happened by chance.

Pellegrini was teaching at Austintown Fitch High School in 1990 when he decided to start taking classes again at Youngstown State University. His former saxophone professor, Joseph Edwards, was dean of the Dana School of Music and told him the Youngstown Area Community Concert Band was looking for a conductor.

“The pay for the band director equaled one class for a quarter,” Pellegrini said. “I thought I’ll do that to pay for the class, and here I am 33 years later. I just love it to death. I get so much enjoyment from this group.”

There have been many highlights over the years, including being chosen to perform at the Association of Concert Bands’ national convention in Pittsburgh and performing at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown for the unveiling of the Norman Rockwell painting, “Lincoln the Railsplitter.”

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

But Pellegrini said he is most proud of the annual Concert for Giving. It started as a joint concert with the YACCB and the Austintown Fitch Jazz Ensemble. After Pellegrini retired from teaching, the band partnered with Stambaugh Chorus for the concert, which is held every December at Stambaugh Auditorium. Together they’ve raised more than $53,000 for Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley.

“It’s grown into a major holiday event – Mike Iberis (Second Harvest executive director) gave us that title,” Pellegrini said. “We continue to raise $5,000, $6,000 a year, and the band and the chorus, neither one of us takes one penny out of that money. Every single penny given goes to Second Harvest.”

It’s also a concert that reed player Clyde Gray of Southington looks forward to each year.

“I’m just a lover of Christmas music, and it’s just more memorable playing in Stambaugh Auditorium,” he said.

Gray and his wife, Marsha, who plays flute, serve as librarians for the band, and they are one of five married couples who play in the ensemble.

“It’s just a wonderful group of people,” Marsha Gray said. “Every week I look forward to going to rehearsal.”

SUMMER SEASON

For its summer concert season, which includes a performance Saturday as part of Youngstown State University’s Summer Festival of the Arts in Wean Foundation Park, Pellegrini assembled a program that will be dominated by movie music.

The work of composer John Williams (“Jaws,” “Superman” and the “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones” and “Harry Potter” franchises) will be featured prominently along with music from “The Wizard of Oz,” “O Brother Where Art Thou,” “Patton” and “Titanic.”

The band also will do a second fundraiser for Second Harvest Food Bank with a Christmas in July with Friends concert at Boardman Park on July 23. While the December show only accepts monetary donations, the July concert with the Canfield Community Band will collect nonperishable food donations, and Pellegrini said the goal is to collect more than 1,000 pounds of food.