District News

Enjoy the Mt. Prospect Community Band as they celebrate their 50^th Anniversary season. The six-week Summer Festival of Music series begins Monday, June 22 at 7:30pm indoors at RecPlex at 420 West Dempster in Mount Prospect and runs through July 27^th. With completion of the Lions Park construction, the band will return home to the Lions Park Band Shell for the Summer 2027 season.

For Additional 2026 concert details click here

In 1976, Prospect High School Band Director, Ralph Wilder, held a summer program for band students to maintain their musicianship. The ensemble played a July 4 Bicentennial concert at the gazebo in downtown Mount Prospect. Soon afterward, inspired by neighboring community bands, Wilder invited adult musicians to join and expand the ensemble into a community band. There were no auditions, but it was hoped that musical competence and skills would develop. Originally, the band was composed of PHS students and a few adults. The band grew and in September 1991, the park district opened the RecPlex Recreation Complex. The band moved to RecPlex for rehearsals, with formal indoor concerts held at area churches and schools.

In May 1977, Wilder left the group and recruited Ether Smith, a former band director from Skokie’s Old Orchard Jr. High School, to take over as conductor. Smith was a member of the North Shore Concert Band and encouraged the band members to write a formal constitution to provide program structure while establishing it as an adult band for musicians 18 and over. That first summer, the band performed at various District parks and eventually found a permanent home in back of the Lions Park Recreation Center with a stage made of wooden pallets.

Mr. Smith relinquished his position at the end of the year and was followed by five interim music directors. In 1985, Ralph Wilder returned to the podium at the request of Cultural Arts Manager, Randy Toelke of the Mt. Prospect Park District. Notable group members included Mark Peterson, who became a US Air Force Band Director and Thomas Wilkins, who began as a young professor of music at North Park University and later became the Music Director of the Omaha Symphony. Wilkins is now on the conducting staff of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Current Music Director, Mr. Monty Adams, was hired in January 2016.

Through the years, the MPCB performed at the dedications for the Mount Prospect Fire Department, Library, Public Works and Village Hall, as well as at the Lions Club Farmer’s Market. In addition, the Band entertained at Little City, Maryville Academy, nursing homes, senior communities, shopping malls, July 4th celebrations, and various church functions in the northwest suburbs. In 2003, as part of the annual Celestial Gala, the Mt. Prospect Community Band was awarded the “Toast of the Town” Shining Star for its cultural contribution to Mount Prospect.

In July 1997, assistant conductor, O.D. Premo, arranged for a musical exchange with the Bromyard Wind Band in England. The concert tour itinerary included Stratford-Upon-Avon, Drayton Manor in Tamworth, St. Peter’s Church of England in Bromyard, Symphony Hall in Birmingham, Malvern Hills, and Britain’s finest Baroque church, the Great Whitley Church, completed in 1735.

In June 2004, the Band competed a second exchange with Mount Prospect’s Sister City of Sevrès, France. The Band performed at the Conservatoire, the International University in Paris, and at a Sevres banquet where the combined groups played “Let There Be Peace on Earth” as they had done in Mount Prospect in 2003.

In 2007, Ralph Wilder arranged an exchange with Enrico Cesano of the Corpo Musicale Olgiatese in Olgiate Comasco, Italy, near Lake Como. The exchange was repeated in August 2013. The Band performed concerts in Cathedral Plaza in Como, Cortile “Medioevo” in Olgiate Comasco, Varenna, and Varese and enjoyed sightseeing in the Italian cities of Venice, Milan, Como, Bergamo, Lago Maggiore, Lago Di Como, and in Lugano, Switzerland. The Italian band visited Mount Prospect in August 2015 and performed in Chicago’s Daley Center Plaza, Cantigny Park in Wheaton, and at the Veterans Memorial Band Shell in Mount Prospect.

A unique MPCB program was the series of “Do-It-Yourself Sousa” concerts that ran from 1993-2012. Dr. Michael Golemo, Director of Bands at Iowa State University and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Akron (Ohio), conducted the concert in character as John Philip Sousa. Over 100 musicians participated in these popular concerts. The annual event was sponsored by the Mount Prospect Special Events Committee and was open to all musicians who pre-registered and attended a same day rehearsal.

The Mt. Prospect Community Band has the distinct honor of performing summer outdoor concerts in the Mount Prospect Veterans Memorial Band Shell. On September 7, 1995, past presidents Jim Weyrick and Judy Thorne went before a Mount Prospect Veterans Memorial Committee seeking public input and presented the idea of a “living memorial” in the form of a band shell. The idea was well received and a non-profit Foundation was formed and incorporated in January 1996. The Foundation was chaired by Colonel Bob McKillop of the MP VFW post with additional support from the American Legion. The fundraising was very successful and the band shell was dedicated on May 31,1999. The dedication included the annual “Do It Yourself” Sousa concert, with the first MPCB band shell concert held the next evening. The Foundation deeded the Memorial to Mt. Prospect Park District on Dec. 8, 1999.

The MPCB has been very fortunate to welcome wonderful and exciting guest soloists both vocal and instrumental. Amy Keipert performs regularly as the resident vocalist, and Wayne and Kathleen Messmer, Chicago’s “First Couple of Song,” appeared frequently through the years; others included William Warfield, Metropolitan Opera star who narrated Aaron Copeland’s A Lincoln Portrait; Gloria Van, 1940’s Big Band singer, Leah Novak, song stylist; Tage Larsen, trumpet Chicago Symphony Orchestra; James Smelser, horn Chicago Symphony Orchestra; John Bruce Yeh, clarinet, Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Diana Stoic, soprano, Lyric Opera; Jennifer Kosharsky, mezzo-soprano; Simon Keung Lee, tenor; Sarah Jessen, trumpet, Louisville Orchestra; Amy Krueger, horn, Louisville Orchestra; Tom Stark, trombone, Northwest Indiana Symphony; and Chicago radio personality, Scott Thomas.