A Big Evening Of Music At NHS_Will Include One Singer’s Homecoming

To help raise money for a new sound system at Newtown High School, The Berkshire Big Band and The Dartmouth Cords will be performing at the high school on Friday, November 2. The concert will begin at 7:30 pm.

The Berkshire Big Band is a 17-piece band that has been playing throughout Fairfield County and the surrounding area for many years under the direction of Chip Zellner. The band performs a wide variety of music for listening and dancing. The group has regularly performed for area school jazz symposiums, as the featured band at Wilton, Norwalk and Weston jazz festivals, for Connecticut Special Olympics, and appears regularly in the summer concert series in Newtown and Danbury.

Featured members of the band include the vocalist Jan Maki, who has been with the group for four years. Before that she sang with Big Band Revival Orchestra and Classic Choice Quartet. Jazz trumpet player Bucky Milan, who has performed with Henry Mancini, Dallas and Chicago symphonies, and in the Big Bands of Buddy Rich, Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, is also in the Berkshire’s current line-up, as is Bernie Ross, a senior member of Berkshire and the group’s hazz historian. Mr Ross has performed in pit orchestras for Broadway shows, among them Can Can, Gypsy, Mr Wonderful and Three Penny Opera.

The Dartmouth Cords is recognized as one of the country’s best a cappella performing groups, combining sweet sounds, smooth moves and hilarious skits to produce action packed shows that has won the group acclaim since its founding in 1995. Off-campus, the group has toured extensively on college campuses and for alumni clubs and high schools from Hanover, N.H., to Virginia Beach.

The Cords have also performed the national anthem for the Philadelphia 76ers and on NBC’s Today. They will be returning this year to the Today show and will also be in Madison Square Garden to sing at a New York Knicks game. The group has already released three CDs — Against the Grain (1998), Accordingly (1999) and Elements of Style (2001).

The November 2 show in Newtown will be especially meaningful for the Cords in that member Ryan Braun is a Newtown High School Class of 2000 graduate. Mr Braun offers his baritone voice to the group’s contemporary ballads.

For advance tickets call Dr Henry Gellert’s office at 426-5900 or Dr Kevin Braun’s office at 426-9692. Tickets can also be purchased at the door.