{"id":13678,"date":"2026-02-03T17:33:55","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T00:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/four-corners-community-band-celebrates-25-years-sees-membership-surge\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:39:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:39:49","slug":"four-corners-community-band-celebrates-25-years-sees-membership-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/four-corners-community-band-celebrates-25-years-sees-membership-surge\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Corners Community Band celebrates 25 years, sees membership surge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Four Corners Community Band preparing to play at the Rico Fourth of July parade last July. The band has nearly doubled in size in one year. (Four Corners Community Band Facebook)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Four Corners Community Band marked its 25th anniversary in 2025 with a special concert and has since grown enough to move to a larger venue.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1999, the band marked its anniversary with a themed \u201cConcert of Firsts\u201d in March 2025 at the Montezuma\u2011Cortez High School auditorium. The program highlighted works tied to \u201cfirsts,\u201d including the band\u2019s inaugural 2001 piece, its first commissioned work, a composition honoring Amelia Earhart and Billy Joel\u2019s breakout hit \u201cPiano Man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Past members were invited as special guests.<\/p>\n

Membership grew from 25 to 45 in a year, with musicians ages 15 to 84 and at least 10 high school students. Director Karen Steele said the band now spans every decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fun, because our whole motto of connecting generations through music just comes to life with that,\u201d Steele told The Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

To accommodate the growth, the band moved rehearsals to the Lamp Post Creative Learning Center in Cortez.<\/p>\n

The ensemble uses standard concert band instrumentation, including flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, trombones, French horns, tubas and percussion. Steele said the band could especially use more alto saxophones and clarinets. The trumpet section recently expanded from two players to seven, which she said better supports traditional three\u2011part arrangements.<\/p>\n

Rehearsals take place Monday nights from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Lamp Post. Prospective members who can play at a high school level are encouraged to attend for up to three weeks before deciding whether to join.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always give people a three\u2011week window to come and try it out. If you like it, great \u2013 sign up on a long\u2011term basis. If you don\u2019t, that\u2019s OK. Return your music, and at least you tried,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n

She added that a few newcomers have taken advantage of the trial period and emphasized, \u201cIf you don\u2019t try, you\u2019ll never know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band welcomes new members and has no set maximum size. Steele described the group as close\u2011knit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a fun, loving group of people that feels to me, feels more like a family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

More information is available at www.fourcornerscommunityband.org.<\/p>\n

The band has a spring concert titled \u201cA Musical Journey Around the World\u201d on Wednesday, April 8 at 7 p.m. at Lamp Post. It will also play the Cortez Farmers Market opening on Saturday, May 30 and return to Rico for its traditional Fourth of July parade and firehouse concert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

will have a spring concert on Wednesday, April 8<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1060,28,60,559,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-music","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19104,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13678\/revisions\/19104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13678"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}