The Band Plays On: A Talk With Community Band Director Fran Rundel

As part of our recurring Q&A feature with people in the community, Patch talked with Whitefish Bay Community Band Director Fran Rundel. A former Whitefish Bay resident, she and her husband Jim Rundel moved to Germantown 15 years ago but remain connected to the community through the community band. The band's next concert is the Whitefish Bay Civic Foundation's Ice Cream Social on Aug. 8.

Patch: How long have you been the conductor of the community band, and how did you get into the role?

Fran Rundel: This is my third season conducting the band. I've played trumpet in the band for quite a number of years, and we've had a variety of conductors along the way. The last conductor, Carol O'Brien, passed away in 2010. We (Fran and her husband Jim, who plays baritone in the band) belong to the Golden Eagles Band during the regular season, and traditionally that ends in June when the Whitefish Bay band starts up. So some people from the Golden Eagles Band come over to Whitefish Bay because the rehearsals and concerts are on the same night, Wednesday night.

Patch: What do you do for a living? Do you have any experience conducting?

Fran Rundel: I don’t have any background in conducting. My background is a nurse. I studied nursing, then went directly into the Navy after college. I served seven years on active duty. I played trumpet all through high school and part of college. I also play accordion, guitar and drums. Music has been something I do on the side. I worked eight years as a telephone triage nurse at Westbrook Pediatrics in Brookfield, and I retired in March. People would ask me how I could work all day and then pick up the trumpet. But I enjoy it. I'm in another world. I forget everything that happens during the day.

Patch: How big is the band? Do you have a good mix of instrumental sections?

Fran Rundel: We have 43 people, and a fair number live in Whitefish Bay. We have a mix of retired people, younger people that work and upper high school students. We typically only have three rehearsals, then a rehearsal before each concert. So you have to be able to sight-read and play pretty well, and that's why we usually limit it to upper high school students. We have a wonderful low bass section, and a wonderful flute section this year, and the balance is good in each of the other sections.

Patch: Which types of songs do you enjoy? Which types of songs does the band enjoy playing?

Fran Rundel: We have a repertoire of about 300 to 400 songs, and we do repeat a number of them each year just because we can’t learn all new music in our limited rehearsal time. But we try to pick three or four new numbers for each concert. I particularly like swing and big band music, but I also realize that we need to have a variety of things. We will usually play two or three marches, a polka, a ballad or two, a vocal, and something that might lend itself to a theme in each concert. At our last concert, we celebrated National Cowboy Day, which was the Saturday after our concert. We played "Blazing Saddles" and "Good Old West," and we wore cowboy hats and neckerchiefs. I think I’ve wanted to make it more of a show rather than just playing music.

Patch: How healthy are community bands in this day and age? Do you have trouble recruiting new members?

Fran Rundel: My thinking is that more communities had community bands in the past. We also had a lot of industrial bands, a lot of companies like Pabst and Northwestern Mutual had their own band. Greendale still has quite a bit of music going on all year. If you want to play you could find a band. There are bands in Cedarburg, Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, Germantown, Hartland...It’s not real unique to Whitefish Bay, but it does require advertising and people that really like to play. 

In Whitefish Bay, the ice cream socials are extremely well-attended, but I would love to see more people come to all of the concerts. I tell people to get their friends to come. There are three or four band members who distribute fliers and post our signs. We are thinking about area retirement centers and if they’d be interested in busing people to the concerts. We’d like to see more people come, but we understand everyone leads busy lives.