The weather has not gone along with Jim Osters’ plan, but the crowds have.
“It was very touch-and-go, whether we would get an audience,” the president of the Buffalo Grove Symphonic Band said. “Once the rain stopped, people started streaming in from all sorts of directions.”
That was Osters’ view from the band’s percussion section as the skies over Kracklauer Park in Mundelein cleared and his group prepared to play the fourth of its five-date summer concert series. It lost one of those shows to rain, and the series was set to conclude Sunday at Heritage Park in Wheeling, but Osters said the first year of the new concept went well overall.
“It’s exciting to have this come to fruition after 15 years of wanting to do it,” he said.
Founded in 2001, the band is playing through its usual schedule of formal concerts and community appearances, but added something entirely new for 2016. Empowered by a new home base and a crew of willing musicians, Buffalo Grove’s community band set up its first summer tour. The shows have been outdoors (the July 13 performance at Willow Stream Park in Buffalo Grove was a wash-out, but a hardy audience waited for the rain to stop July 24 in Mundelein), and Osters said the crowds have been lively.
“You hope to attract an audience that gets used to the idea that there’s going to be a concert,” he said. “You build up the reputation and people get in the habit, and hopefully you attract bigger and bigger audiences.”
The idea took form in March 2015, Osters said, when the Buffalo Grove Park District was in the process of building a new band shell for Willow Stream Park.
Newly elected Gov. Bruce Rauner cut the state’s funding to such projects, and the BGPD Board of Commissioners voted to complete it with its own money.
Osters said that after realizing the site would be finished, the band spoke with the parks about using it as a home for an outdoor, summertime series. The commissioners offered use of the Willow Stream location for free on nights when it was not already booked.
“That was the incentive we needed,” Osters said. “Now, we had a place.”
For their outdoor series, Osters said they played a pair of 45-minute sets, with a water break for both the audience and the performers between. The outdoor shows have included almost the entire band — 65 players of wind and percussive instruments — though he said some members could not make every date on the expanded schedule.
They play outdoors at least once every year (Buffalo Grove’s Independence Day festival), so Osters said getting used to the summer scene has not been much of a challenge. The only major hurdle, he said, is the setting sun shining directly into the performers’ eyes, blocking out their music sheets and conductor Howard Green.
“That’s a particular problem,” and Osters said some members wore brimmed hats for help.
The new shows did not put much strain on the band’s budget —which has expanded recently. Former publicity chair (and bass clarinet player) Alan Nudelman noted that Buffalo Grove Village Hall entrusted the band with a $4,000 account two years ago, but added that they have never taken any money out of it yet.
“We’ve been able to bring in enough through donations and ticket sales,” Nudelman said.
Osters said the will decide after the reverberations from the final show have settled whether to continue the summer series in 2017.
“Whether it becomes an annual thing depends on whether we can build a sufficient audience,” he said.
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