The California Gold Rush Band
The California Gold Rush Band always brings some new music to Danville. In the past, the band brought along a special arrangement of ``My Old Kentucky Home'' that was performed by The Advocate Brass Band. On another occasion, the band presented a specially commissioned march, ``The Kentucky Gold Rush.''
This year, the band will perform the 20th century Kentucky premiere of an 1830s piece called ``Maysville March.'' The piece has been lost for 150 years. Stephen Charpie, E-flat cornetist with the band, has reconstructed the march. The march was written by Henry H. Williams, a black band leader in Louisville in the mid-1800s. Williams' band had both free and slave blacks and when the band was asked to perform in Cincinnati, the slave blacks in the band attempted a dangerous escape. A trial was held against Williams. Stay tuned as Charpie promises to relate the end of the story at the festival.
Co-led by Charpie and alto hornist Les Benedict, the California band uses instruments from the 1850s and 1860s and the music from that time. The band is based on an old photograph of the Columbia Cornet Band, faithfully recreating the Columbia band right down to the E-flat alto valve trombone. Further research has unearthed an extensive heritage of brass bands in the Mother Lode. Columbia State Historic Park has provided much information. Newspaper accounts, photographs and other sources authenticate that ``golden age'' of California brass band music.
Members of the 11-piece group are active musicians. Members are some of the top symphony players in the Los Angeles area.
Band member Robb Stewart is internationally known as a restorer of these instruments and makes replica instruments. Charpie is a co-founder of the band.
The band is active with concerts, demonstrations, balls and living music history programs, and was featured on the soundtrack of Ken Burns' Thomas Jefferson, which aired on PBS in February 1997. Since its inception in 1992, the band has been featured three times at The Great American Brass Band Festival and at brass band festivals in Michigan and South Dakota. They are regulars at the Custer's Last Stand re-enactment in Hardin, Mont., where they are featured at an 1860s-style Military Ball. This year, the band performed at the Custer's Last Stand battle site (a National Monument).
Other performance venues include Illinois State University, the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles, the Homestead Museum in the City of Industry, U.C. Irvine, and C.S.U. Fullerton. A tour under the auspices of The Great American Brass Band Festival On Tour is scheduled for 1998.
