MARKING TWO MILESTONES: The Sunday, May 18 concert by the Blawenburg Band, at Kendall Hall on the campus of The College of New Jersey, celebrates the ensemble’s 135th birthday and conductor Jerry Rife’s 40th year on the podium.
By Anne Levin
One day back in 1890, a big box of musical instruments arrived at the post office at Route 518 and the Great Road. The box was opened and the instruments were doled out to a group of fledging musicians, who went behind the building and learned how to play.
“That’s how the story goes,” said Jerry Rife, music director and conductor of The Blawenburg Band, comparing it to a scene right out of The Music Man. “We started on the second floor of the old blacksmith shop on Route 518. When we got too big, we moved to the Blawenburg Church across the street.”
That’s where the historic ensemble was rehearsing when Rife took over four decades ago. The band counted 18 members then, but soon outgrew the space and moved its Monday evening sessions to the Princeton Montessori School nearby. Today, 75 musicians count themselves as members. All of them will be performing on Sunday, May 18 at The College of New Jersey’s (TCNJ) Kendall Hall, in a 3 p.m. concert celebrating Rife’s 40th year on the podium and the band’s 135th anniversary.
Rife, who is professor emeritus of music at Rider University, figures he has conducted more than 1,200 concerts by the band. He strives to make each of them different.
“I like music that is approachable and has a little bit of a story to it,” he said. “It’s the history teacher in me. I like to tell the audience what to listen for. What was Scott Joplin thinking when he wrote this ragtime piece? Or, what was John Philip Sousa’s life like after he fell off a horse in Willow Grove Park? Then, people know what they’re listening to. They love it. I had a woman come up to me and say, ‘I like what you say better than what you play.’ I thought that was great.”
Each performance, the upcoming one included, has some Sousa on the program. “But there’s a lot of diversity,” Rife said. “I love Sousa, of course. But there are hundreds of other marches that are really great. I like to bring music that no one else plays. I’m a teacher from the podium.”
A clarinetist, Rife was an entomology major at Kansas State University when a D grade in botany made him decide to alter his path and switch to music. He taught in the public schools before he decided to go back to college, where he earned a doctorate in music history. Rider hired him in 1984; the band a year later, when they were in between conductors.
Community bands were common when the Blawenburg ensemble was formed in 1890. “There were thousands of them, or hundreds of thousands,” Rife said. “Every town had their own. They were the main entertainment for the community. Princeton and Trenton had some. There are far less of them today, but there is still a rich group on the East Coast. There’s one in Allentown, and another in Reading (Pa.).
Rife’s wife plays piccolo in the band. Players, who range from amateurs to professionals, are like family.
“They just want to play. They want to make music,” Rife said. “That makes the band my family. I’ve got longtime friends in the band. We rehearse every Monday night. They don’t want to hear me talk, they want to play.”
While some bands play a few professional concerts a year, Blawenburg’ makes a point of performing in nursing homes and retirement centers as well as theaters and gazebos. “We consider that our most important work,” Rife said. “We take our band to them. That has always been the goal.”
Rife chooses music that challenges the players — “but not too much,” he said. “We have a wide range of abilities. Also, I want to pick music that’s fun to play, and entertaining to the audience. I always pick short pieces, contrasting in tempo and key. A Sousa march, a folk song, a standard classical piece, something from opera — there is a whole lot of music out there.”
Despite the four-decade milestone, Rife has no plans to retire.
“Music is a way to live longer,” he said. “It engages your full brain. It makes you in touch with your art. It takes the pain away, especially if you’re in an ensemble for a long time. This is an elixir of life.”
Admission to the Blawenburg Band’s double anniversary concert is free. TCNJ is located on Route 31 in Ewing. Visit blawenburgband.org for more information.