Tuesday, July 8, canceled due to rain.
Join us for Summer 2025, Season 29!
Music Director & Conductor Danny Lewis spent the past nine years as Director of Bands at McCluer High School and teaching at McCluer High School in the Ferguson Florissant School District and served as the District’s Fine Arts Coordinator for the last three years. In fall 2025, he will start a new position as Director of Bands at Hazelwood West High School. Prior to teaching in the Ferguson Florissant District, he taught band for three years at Mark Twain Jr/Sr. High School in the Ralls Co RII School District in Center, Missouri. He received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Truman State University. Danny has had the pleasure of playing with many local St. Louis musicians and, as an educator, has had the opportunity to collaborate with artists and administrators from Jazz St. Louis and the St. Louis Symphony. In his free time he likes to build guitars and ukuleles in his basement. He’s excited for his third year as Director of the University City Summer Band!
Essential monetary donations to support the U City Summer Band come from businesses and friends like you! We want to continue and expand our efforts to play with and mentor St. Louis area high school musicians. In making a financial donation to the band, you are supporting these efforts and supporting our community. Your financial support also helps us bring in guest artists. You can donate online with PayPal or Venmo or by check at the donations page. You can donate online using a credit card, debit card or PayPal. To donate by check, please see more information on the donation page.
The University City Summer Band is a production of the University City Music Company, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Donations may be tax deductible. Thank you for keeping the music going!
CANCELED DUE TO RAIN!
Opening Fanfare.....Danny Lewis
West Side Story.....Leonard Bernstein; Arr. Bocook
Gershwin Portrait.....George Gershwin; Arr. Higgins
Summertime.....George Gershwin; Arr. Custer
The Greatest Showman.....Arr. Paul Murtha
INTERMISSION
Les Miserables.....Claude-Michel Schönberg; Arr. Barker
Oklahoma!......Rogers and Hammerstein; Arr. Edmonson
April in Paris.....Vernon Duke; Arr. Maltby
Selections from Wicked....Stephen Swartz; Arr. Bocook
On the Mall.....Edwin Franko Goldman
2025 concerts will take place in Heman Park (Midland & Shaftesbury Entrance)
SUMMER 2025!!
The 60-member (give or take) U City Summer Band is... Light Classics, Marches, Patriotic Music, Show Tunes, Popular Music, Jazz, and Original Music for Band.
Concerts are held at our venue in Heman Park, 1028 Midland Blvd, University City, MO 63130 (park entrance is off Midland, opposite Shaftesbury).
All concerts start at 7PM, last about 60 minutes, and include a short intermission. Seating is on the lawn. Bring a lawn chair or blanket as available seating is limited. Bring your children! Bring a picnic! There is shade for the audience (beneath the trees). There is a nearby playground and restrooms.
For our last piece at each concert, we play "On the Mall." Children are invited to come up to the front and conduct the band and receive their very own U City Summer Band pencil!
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U City Summer Band Vidoes on YouTube!
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The U City Summer Band was featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
COMPLETE ARTICLE
“It’s unlike anything else, this atmosphere,” said Frank Chross of University City, lounging in his lawn chair with about 150 others for the first University City Summer Band concert of the season.
“There’s something about live music,” said Danny Lewis, a trumpeter who took over as director of the U. City Summer Band this year. “It’s a magical thing.”
“I’m of the mindset that I want everybody to play,” said U. City’s Lewis, who teaches band in the Ferguson-Florissant School District. “We’ll find a place for you.” Recruiting and retaining younger players can be a challenge. Most band members are closer to Social Security eligibility than to their college days.
The University City Summer Band designates its second concert of the season as Student Night, inviting high school band members from across the region to accompany it. Song selection helps to both engage performers and turn first-time audience members into regulars, said Lewis. “I want there to be music that you’ve never heard and some that you know,” he said. Military marches, Broadway scores and patriotic tunes are constants. But reimagined billboard hits and blockbuster movie soundtracks also get their due. “My 8-year-old will be singing along to ‘Hakuna Matata,’” said Lewis, who himself favors “Irish Tune from County Derry,” better known as “Danny Boy.”
U. City is just a few members shy of its full pre-pandemic roster of about 90. But at the end of every concert, its ranks swell. Lewis invites the kids in the audience to the podium to grab a pencil. A dozen new conductors are born as the band closes out the show with one final march.
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Our third High School Student Night on Tuesday, June 17, 2025 was a HUGE SUCCESS!
Thank you to those who joined and we look forward to making music with St. Louis area high school musicians again next year!
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