{"id":24096,"date":"2025-01-08T22:23:27","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T05:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/four-corners-community-band-will-celebrate-25th-anniversary\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:48:18","slug":"four-corners-community-band-will-celebrate-25th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/four-corners-community-band-will-celebrate-25th-anniversary\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Corners Community Band will celebrate 25th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Four Corners Community Band is celebrating 25 years. (Ken Degener\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Four Corners Community Band will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2025 through a concert in March, along with other surprises yet to be revealed.<\/p>\n

The band was created in December 1999 through the efforts of Mark Allen, who had just moved to Cortez from Arizona that year. While in Arizona, he had been the director of the Cottonwood Community Band.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Four Corners Community Band during a performance in 2017. (Mark Allen\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Allen hung posters around Cortez, hoping there would be some interest in starting a community band.<\/p>\n

At the first meeting, only three people showed up. One was a bassoon player, one a French horn player and the other played the saxophone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pretty disappointed, but they were very excited and said they would contact their friends, so I scheduled the first rehearsal for January of 2000,\u201d Allen said. \u201cAround 10 people attended that practice. It was enough to pull off a few songs, and then it just grew from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every week, more people showed up to the Cortez Cultural Center, where the band practiced, curious about the band and interested in joining.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember one time we were practicing, and the front door was open and a woman just walking by on the street stuck her head in and said, \u2018Can anybody play?\u2019\u201d Allen said. \u201cShe came in and ended up staying with us for years, playing the drums.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mark
Mark Allen (center) is the founder of the band. He conducted for six years. (Mark Allen\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Twenty-five years later, the band has grown to more than 30 members from around the Four Corners, ranging in age from high school to senior citizens. Allen, though retired from the band now, was the conductor for six years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started it, I didn\u2019t really expect it to go 25 years, but I\u2019m glad it has,\u201d Allen said. \u201cI think my favorite part would just be seeing all these people who haven\u2019t touched an instrument for 30 or 40 years get it out and come and join us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Band members have included people working in various occupations, including physicians, a coroner and teachers.<\/p>\n

The only requirement is to be able to play high school-level music.<\/p>\n

Current band President Keith Steele, Director Karen Steele and original member Sue Maxwell also spoke of the band\u2019s 25 years, as well as providing insight into what the band looks like today.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will entertain anybody that has played through high school and into college, even if they haven\u2019t played for 20 years,\u201d Keith Steele said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be active. We will bring you up to speed if you want to pull your instrument out of the closet and warm it up. We\u2019re glad to have you and we\u2019ll help you out. We\u2019re basically a giant family. We have a lot of fun together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Four Corners Community Band plays at its most recent Christmas concert. (Ken Degener\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The band meets every Monday night for two hours, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., at the First Baptist Church in Cortez. The church allows the band to practice in their basement and dining area.<\/p>\n

Right now, they hope to find individuals who can play the saxophone, clarinet and baritone to join.<\/p>\n

The first performance of 2025 is Tuesday, March 4, at First Baptist Church, starting at 7 p.m. The band\u2019s concerts are free.<\/p>\n

This concert will also be a nod to the 25th anniversary, with past members being honored. There will also be a slideshow from previous years playing during the concert.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to celebrate the members that have been in the band throughout the years,\u201d Keith Steel said. \u201cWe are going to try to contact previous members that have retired and recognize them at our concerts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The theme is \u201cA Concert of Firsts,\u201d and two or three pieces will be played that have been commissioned by the band. It will be the world premiere of these pieces. There will also be a duet between a clarinet and baritone saxophone for the song, \u201cThe Elephant and the Flea,\u201d with band accompaniment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also going to do a piece that was played in the first concert of the band 25 years ago,\u201d Keith said.<\/p>\n

This year, the band will perform in Rico for a Fourth of July performances, along with several other concerts in the Cortez area. Recently, they played a Christmas concert and performed at the luminaria night at Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery.<\/p>\n

Though they do not charge for tickets as a nonprofit, they do accept donations on their website and at their concerts.<\/p>\n

Band organizers also started a new program called \u201cSponsor a Song,\u201d which gives a creative spin to donating.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you donate $100, which is about the cost of buying a piece of music for the band. We\u2019ll pick out the music, but that piece of music will be credited to the person who sponsored that song in the program for the next three times it\u2019s played,\u201d Keith said.<\/p>\n

Another option is to sign up to donate at City Market. After signing up, a certain amount of money will be donated to the band through shopping.<\/p>\n

More information about the band can be found through their Facebook page<\/a>, Four Corners Community Band, or website<\/a> at www.fourcornerscommunityband.org\/.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

continues to \u2018connect generations through music\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,60,559,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","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\/24096","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=24096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78399,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24096\/revisions\/78399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24096"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}