gigs
Upcoming Gigs
July 4, 2026: Oakland Municipal Band - bass clarinet, arranger. The Oakland Municipal Band is a professional union group with an annual summer season of five concerts in July and August. I have played the bass clarinet chair for many years. This particular concert––celebrating the 4th of July and conducted by Troy Davis––will have an appropriate festive selection of music. Included will be my arrangement of Schubert's Military March #1, having its world premiere! Schubert isn't the first composer one typically associates with concert bands, but this particular work lends itself quite well to the medium. The piece has been arranged for many different kinds of ensembles over the years. But I believe this is the first version that incorporates the solo piano version by Carl Tausig into the material. (The original is for piano, four hands.) It's an infectious little ear worm and suits the patriotic theme of the day.
July 12, 2026: Oakland Municipal Band - bass clarinet, arranger. The theme for this week's concert is popular music throughout the years. The arrangement of mine being performed this week is Rialto Ripples by George Gershwin and Will Donaldson. It was Gershwin's first published piece. It's a rag and very tongue-in-cheek––at least in my arrangement! I did this arrangement back in 2013 for the band. This will be its second performance.
July 19, 2026: Oakland Municipal Band - bass clarinet, arranger. This week's concert celebrates the city of Oakland. (Our Music Director and conductor, Kaitlin Bove, is very creative at themes and programming. You'll have to ask her how my piece fits into the Oakland theme.) My arrangement this week is my very left field take on Sabre Dance by Aram Khachaturian. This piece was one of the very first pieces of classical music I remember hearing as a kid. The title struck me as very intriguing. I liked the piece, but I remember thinking the music wasn't quite as dangerous sounding as the title hinted at. At some much later point, as an adult, I thought that it would fit very well and easily into a 7/8 meter, giving the piece a bit of unpredictability that I fely the original lacked. I mentioned this to a friend who shares my enthusiasm for the odd meter exploits of the jazz musician Don Ellis. Ever since then he has been only half jokingly asking for when he's going to hear Sabre Dance in 7! So, I finally got around to it and dedicated it to him. He lives in Florida, but he's making the pilgrammage to hear the concert! Anyway, I call the piece Seven Sabres Dancing and, if that title sounds vaguely remindful to you of some other piece, then, yes, I did write an 'Easter Egg' into the arrangement! Another world premiere!!
July 24, 25, 28, 31, August7 and 8, 2026: Hairspray at the San Francisco Playhouse - tenor and alto sax, flute. A half block off of Union Square in San Francisco. The show runs from July 10 through September 12, seven performances a week. I'm one of four players covering the woodwind book.
July 26, 2026: Oakland Municipal Band - bass clarinet, arranger. The theme this week is about soundtracks: movies, TV, and anime. Last year, some members in the band suggested I do an arrangement of Tank! from the anime show, Cowboy Bebop. The original is a Latin, high energy big band piece––featuring a virtuostic alto sax solo––that harkens back to the type of spy/crime music you might have heard in the 60's. Maybe James Bond working at Hawaii Five-O! I checked with our conductor,Kaitlin, about her thoughts. She said that if I could make it work for concert band that it would be "sick". Challenge accepted. World premiere #3.
July 30, 2026, 6-9 pm: Dick Harris Big Band, SacYard Community Tap House and Beer Garden - alto sax. The band's standing gig at this popular Sacramento locale. (Every fifth Thursday of the month!) Guest vocalist Martin Beal will join the group. The band performs all kinds of big band selections from the Sinatra days of the fifties up to more contemporary styles. No cover! Check out the SacYard's website for an idea of their food and drink offerings.
August 2, 2026: Oakland Municipal Band - bass clarinet, arranger. It's Broadway week, and for this final concert of the season I will have not one, but two arrangements/world premieres! Coincidentally, both are the title tunes from their shows: Smile, by Marvin Hamlisch, and Sunset Boulevard, by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Both will be performed by guest vocalist Chris Vettel. Chris has performed with the band several times for these Broadway concerts. But I don't think he's ever sung something that was written for a dedicated soloist with band. They've always been sing-alongs while the band plays a medley from whatever show. Both of these tunes were written for male soloists in their shows, albeit with a Broadway pit ensemble instead of a concert band. So I just adapted them for the Oakland ensemble and to give Chris a chance to play characters instead of just singing non-specific medleys.
The Hamlisch number comes from a show that had a lot of starts, stops, and restarts before it finally made it to Broadway, where it closed after about a month. But it has lots of good and ambitious music, with lyrics by Howard Ashman. The show is a satire of teenage beauty pageants, but also has some resonant things to say about optimism and cynicism colliding into each other. This number is sung by the pageant's emcee. It's breezy, cute, and memorable.
Interestingly enough, Chris played the male lead in Sunset Boulevard in its first national tour. When he mentioned this to me I knew I had to tailor this selection for him and the band. He sang this song eight times a week, so this is something of a homecoming for him. The character is virtually a polar opposite of the one for Smile. This Sunset Boulevard one is all cynical and jaded, while the character for Smile is a sincere and guileless, yet second rate crooner.