Ramona Community Brass Band concert carries historical theme

Members of the Ramona Community Brass Band will present their third annual Christmas concert at 5 p.m. on Dec 18 in the Performing Arts Wing at Ramona High School.

Admission is free, but donations will help the band prepare for the next year of concerts and music. The RHS Royal Alliance Band Boosters will offer snacks during the show.

The concert has a military and patriotic theme, and is billed as “Christmas On The Home Front, A Study in How America Celebrates Christmas in War Time.”

Bandmaster Ken Serfass plans to do a timeline presentation with various carols and songs of the season that suit U.S. history, including period dressed re-enactors to set the mood for each song. Some dialog and pantomime will go with some selections and some will also have vocalists.

The concert will start with George Washington and his army at Valley Forge and continue through each of the nation’s historical periods, ending with the modern era. Accompanying each period will be holiday music.

The modern era will be recognized with “O Holy Night” and a voice-over poem, “A Different Kind of Christmas Poem,” “which is about the current deployments of our troops and how we need to remember them,” said Serfass.

Ramona’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post is supporting the concert, noted Serfass, and “all this fits with the VFW bringing veterans to watch, and as well we are encouraging the military housing residents to come out for a salute and day of Christmas spirit. We also plan to serenade with some of the brass in the military housing area the day before, Saturday, Dec. 19th, while the VFW folks hand out the gifts to the kids there.”

Serfass, a Ramona resident and retired U.S. Marine Corps band leader, is principal tubist with the San Diego Festival Chorus Orchestra, brass coach for the San Diego Youth Symphony and Ramona High School band, and assistant band director at Del Norte High School in the Poway school district.

For more information about the concert, he may be contacted at 760-789-4278.