We had a great visit with New England musician, outstanding music educator and consummate music advocate Dr. David Neves. He traces his mother's wisdom during his early interest in playing Alto Sax through participation in Portuguese Bands, School Bands, General Business Bands, and All-State Ensembles leading to a music education major at Berkeley College, being named RI Teacher of the Year, and elected both President of RIMEA and eventually MENC Eastern Division. After retiring from RI teaching, Dr. Neves served as Arts Coordinator for the Needham, MA school district and is currently directing RIPYWE (Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Wind Ensemble: dneves@ri-philharmonic.org)), Coordinator of Music Education for The University of Rhode Island and his life-long passion as Advocacy Co-Chair for RIMEA. Buckle-up for a fascinating story of accomplishment with a few memorable gems along the way!

This episode features our guest Alison Patton, Director of the Westerly Band. She leads a band that has a very long and storied history in the southern most town of Rhode Island. The band has a rather unique role in the community and some very creative recruiting mechanisms that keep things fresh and sustainable.

The band can be contacted at: WesterlyBand@Yahoo.com

Dr. Brian Cardany is the director of one of the oldest community bands in the nation, The American Band of Providence, RI. The band's original charter was in 1837 and it has been performing mostly continuously since then. Dr. Cardany provided an entertaining and informative sketch about the bands storied history, the current triumphs of the band and his path to becoming it's director.

Here are a few samples of The American Band available online:

https://youtu.be/_N0jrqMs2cM?si=pYq0qB_CzBXjSEV5

https://youtu.be/mtNUBe4spK0?si=tII66QGiS2ol9zDp

If you would like to contact Dr. Cardany, his e-mail is bcardany@uri.edu