Dunedin Concert Band Wins Global Music Award Bronze Medal

DUNEDIN, FL — Not every established community group is old-fashioned. The Dunedin Music Society’s flagship ensemble, the Dunedin Concert Band founded in 1981, won this year’s Global Music Award Bronze Medal for “creativity and originality.”

Competitions are not the primary focus of the performers in the Dunedin Concert Band, as that distracts from their ability to share live music with their circles of influence. However, it was comforting for band leaders to see its programming and adaptability to shift events online during the COVID-19 pandemic’s isolation period rewarded.

"Creativity and originality of the music we perform and the way we share it with the world are two important factors we take into consideration when making plans up to two years in advance," said Maestro Stephen P Brown, conductor of the Dunedin Concert Band.

To demonstrate diversity and inclusion, the DCB’s Oct. 17 performance included music that Brown planned for immediately before isolations began, and reflects Spanish deserts, an Appalachian celebration of life and a fast car ride with James Bond.

After talking with Robert W. Smith, renowned composer of the “Don Quixote” symphony the band will perform, Brown said “the cultural influences of the African Moors, the Romans and the shift of Castilian territory from Leon in Northwest Spain to La Mancha in the Southeast, contribute to an exciting musical and emotional journey that is centered around a fascinating 500-year-old fictional character, who we can actually still see parts of in all of us today.”

Brown’s wife, Melissa, will give a special pre-concert talk as an expert in the writings of Miguel de Cervantes, author of “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha” and a contemporary of William Shakespeare. The insights she gleaned from composer Smith will further bridge the relationship between literary creativity and musical originality.

With performances all over Pinellas County since isolations began, the Dunedin Concert Band is happy to finally return to its home at the Dunedin Community Center.

For more information, visit dunedinmusicsociety.org.