New Walnut Street All-Star Orchestra
The New Walnut Street All-Star Orchestra, which debuted during last year's festival, will return.
``It is geniunely an all-star group with members coming from coast to coast,'' said George Foreman, festival organizer.
``The New York Times,'' the first recording of the group, will be released at festival time.
``We've completed the fourth and final recording of newspaper marches. It has some played by the Advocate Band and some by the New Walnut Street Orchestra and some by the Louisville Mandolin Orchestra and some by pianist Heyward Mickens.''
Instrumentalists in the orchestra will be in town for the festival and participate in the Conference on American Band History on The Ragtime Era on Friday.
David Reffkin, performer and ragtime specialist, San Francisco, Calif., will play first violin and act as leader of the group.
Dennis Brown, professor of music at the University of Massachusetts and an authority on ragtime drumming, will be on the drums; cellist will be Amy Camus of New York City; and Gerald Zaffuts of Troy, N.Y., will be on the trombone.
Another group member will be John Hagstrom, a former student of Vince DiMartino and former trumpet soloist with the Marine Band in Washington and now second trumpet in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Doug Burian, a former Centre student and now a member of the Marine Band, is another player. Lydia DiMartino is on flute-piccolo; Paul Castillo of Los Angeles, a principal player in the New Columbian, is on clarinet; and Dick Domek, a University of Kentucky teacher, performs on piano. Domek has written a new rag, ``The New Walnut Street Rag.''
The orchestra will demonstrate ragtime music at the conference and perform at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Ragtime Spectacular in Newlin Hall.
The name of the group comes from the Walnut Street construction that was completed in 1997.
