One of the borough’s oldest and most beloved bands, the Queens Festival Band offers a performance of classical, Broadway and popular music outdoors in the George Seuffert, Sr. Band Shell. The program features patriotic marches, folk songs from our country and around the world, Dixieland, blues, the music of Frank Sinatra and the composers Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakov and Vaughn William. Admission is free.
A product of one of
New York City’s great musical traditions, the Queens Festival Band grew out of the Seuffert Band, which was founded in 1898 by George Seuffert, Sr., a bank executive and concert violinist, who was the son of Bavarian immigrants. The Seuffert Band became Queens’ very own concert band with the
Forest Park band shell—the location for the band’s free summer concerts—named in Seuffert’s honor. At the age of 19, George Seuffert, Jr. took up his father’s baton and served as the band’s director and conductor for the next 63 years, distinguishing himself as an arranger, composer, and music teacher, as well as a music consultant to five
New York City mayors. Following his death in 1995, the Seuffert Band was dissolved. Then, several months later, in early 1996 three band members reorganized as the Queens Festival Band. Today, under conductor Michael Canipe, 27 musicians continue a 110-year tradition of presenting great concert band music to the borough’s residents.
“The concert band is a traditional performing ensemble that is an original American concept,” says Canipe, who studied with James Levine and has been a professional musician and educator on Long Island and in the
New York City area for 40 years. “Our goal is to keep this tradition alive by performing music composed or arranged for this particular instrumentation of brass, woodwinds and percussion.”
This concert will feature a very special event with a guest conducting appearance of
Maria Claire Seuffert, the granddaughter of George Seuffert, Jr. George, Jr. was the driving force behind the Seuffert Band from the early 50’s until his death.
This performance by the Queens Festival Band is made possible through funding provided by New York State Senator Frank Padavan and Senate District 15, with additional support from the Music Performance Fund and Ridgewood Savings Bank.
