WINONA LAKE – Celebrate America Pops Concert, the second of six Village at Winona Festival of Music concerts this summer, will take place outside across from the Boathouse restaurant at 7:45 p.m. July 2 just before the fireworks. The concert will feature patriotic-themed music performed by an 85-member concert band including the Lake Area Community Band, Grace College Wind Ensemble and other professional musicians. The concert is free and open to the public. Martin Becker, Festival of Music coordinator, will direct the band along with Joey Shepherd, Lake Area Community Band assistant director. The program will include music from John Philip Sousa, Leroy Anderson and John Williams. The band also will play pieces from Disney and Broadway as well as Indiana composers including Hoagy Carmichael in tribute to the state’s bicentennial. The Armed Services medley will salute veterans while young audience members will be invited to participate in another special portion of the concert. Rania El-rah will make her debut performance as a featured soloist with an orchestra singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables.” After a recent move from Indianapolis, El-rah is taking the Michiana music scene by storm, regularly signing with Truth in Jazz Big Band and Vibe Nation, according to a press release from Grace College. A second vocal soloist, local hair stylist Luke Becknell, will sing Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” Bob Gray, past member of the United States Navy Band and current principal solo-cornetist with the Ohio Valley British Brass Band in Dayton, Ohio, will perform “Concert Etude” and “Believe in All Those Endearing Young Charms” on trumpet. Former Warsaw resident Max Fulwider, now an accomplished performer and music instructor in Nashville, Tenn., will perform “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Boots Randolph’s “Yakety Sax” on the saxophone. In case of rain, the concert will take place in the Winona Heritage Room. Audience members are encouraged to arrive well before the 7:45 p.m. start time to get a good seat and bring their own chairs or blankets. Grace College, Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts and the Village at Winona have partnered to bring the community high-quality, family-friendly concerts throughout the summer, the release states. The series, sponsored in part by the Esther Pfleiderer Charitable Trust and 1st Source Bank, will includes six concerts from June 18 through Sept. 3. For details on all of the Festival of Music events, visit www.grace.edu/musicfestival.
