Find articles about the New Horizons Program here. Recent articles will be listed on this page, and you can read those by clicking the links below. Some links will open a new page and take you to the web site of the newspaper (or other media) where the story was published. To send an article for posting, please include the source, author, date and your name with contact information and send it to the [Webmaster].
[Note: Some of the articles are video / audio files. If you use dial-up to access the Internet, it may take a long time for these types of articles to download.]
New Horizons International Music Association News
Click Any Article to Open
-
Band Opens New Horizons for Many Members
The Charlotte Observer (North Carolina)
Story by Mary Canrobert
January 1, 2012 -
New Horizons Band: Better Late Than Never
Livin’ Out Loud Magazine
Story by Kathy Sanders
December 11, 2011 -
Music Senior Superlatives
The State (South Carolina)
Story by Bertram Rantin
December 4, 2011 -
Playing Music Exercises Aging Brains
KPBS
Story by Angela Carone
November 18, 2011 -
New Horizons Band for Seniors (NHB of Sonoma County)
The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, California
Story by John Burgess
November 17, 2011 -
New Horizons Band Camp Provides Summer Fun for Community Musicians
The Journal of the Association of Concert Bands
Story by Ron Berry (of the)
New Horizons Band of Northern New York
October 2011 -
NAMM New Horizons Fellowships
Please circulate to music teachers outside of the United States and Canada
Posted July 27, 2011 -
Press Release - The NAMM Foundation Awards Grant to New Horizons International Music Association
Rochester, New York
June 20, 2011 -
East Cobb NHB 2011 Scholarship Program and Winner (Fallon Prigmore)
Contributed by Manny Espinosa
Posted May 3, 2011 -
BYU Music Students Teach, Conduct Community Orchestra
BYU School of Music
Story by Daniel Ng
Posted March 11, 2011 -
The Good Life (Now That I Have the Time, I’m Going to...)
Princeton Alumni Weekly
Story by Doug Hulette
March 2, 2011 -
Music Program Hits a High Note
AARP Bulletin
Story by Judi Hasson
March 1, 2011 -
Valley Seniors Tune Up Their Musical Interests
ABC15.com (KNXV-TV) Phoenix, Arizona
Story by Rebecca Thomas
February 15, 2011 -
Dale Beacock Brings New Horizons to Vancouver
Senior Messenger (Vancouver, Washington)
Story by Jane Elder Wulff
Posted February 6, 2011 (Story from June 2008) -
New Horizons Shares the Music
GulfportPatch (Gulfport, Florida)
Story by Leigh Armstrong
February 5, 2011 -
On 11th Street, New Musical Horizons
The Local East Village
Story by Meredith Hoffman
January 14, 2011 -
You’re Never Too Old To Begin To Swing
NPR News
Story by Kyle Norris
January 8, 2011 -
Celebrating Senior Sounds
[The Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Research Foundation (web site)]
Story by Sam Gaines
Winter 2010 -
15th Anniversary Concert of the Prime Time Band
Dave Mason, Santa Barbara News-Press
November 30, 2010
Click to Open/CloseIt all started with rehearsals of “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”
Four months later, the new band of 33 people, all age 50 and older, had grown to 55 musicians playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” at their first concert Dec. 5, 1995, at La Colina Junior High School.
The audience “gave us a standing ovation,” recalled Orcutt flutist Carol Anderson, 76, one of 15 members who has remained with Prime Time Band all these years and a board member from the start. “They were surprised we could do it -- and we were too!”
Since then, the Santa Barbara ensemble has grown to 85 members and marched on to twice-yearly concerts and annual band camps. In June 2011, the group will travel to Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, VA., as one of six U.S. ensembles picked for the National Community Concert Band Sousa Festival.
Prime Time Band will celebrate all that success at its free 15th anniversary concert at 2 p.m. Dec. 12 at San Marcos High School, 4750 Hollister Ave.
Mr. Vander Ark, the band co-founder and original director, will pick up the baton for half the concert with his favorites that the group played during the 10 years he conducted (1995-2005). Current director Jeff Peterson will guide the rest of the performance.
“I thought (the band) would be here forever. Once we started and with the enthusiasm for it, I could see we would grow quickly,” Mr. Vander Ark, 77, said. He explained that the idea for the ensemble came from George Pendergast, the father of one of his students at La Colina Junior High School, where he taught band from 1959 until retiring in 1993. Together, they, with financial support from co-founder Nick Rail, owner of Nick Rail Music in Santa Barbara, started what originally was called Prime Time 50-Plus Dream Band.
Rehearsals began in August 1995. The band was the 13th group in New Horizon International Music Association, which has grown to 170 bands worldwide for people 50 and older.
By the third year, the band moved its concerts from La Colina Junior High to Santa Marcos High School’s bigger auditorium, where it has played winter and summer concerts since with audiences typically numbering around 850.
Mr. Vander Ark said the band has had members who haven’t picked up their instruments in 30 to 50 years, not since high school or college. Some learned their first band instrument. Average age is 73.
“It was unique,” Mr. Vander Ark said about the band when it debuted. “Parents and grandparents were playing, and their kids and families were in the audience.”
The Prime Time Band has played everything from Glenn Miller hits and Broadway to Handel and Dixieland and everywhere from Fiesta to UCSB basketball games, Mr. Vander Ark said.
The band has the sound of a good high school ensemble, Mr. Peterson, 54, said. The members “have a vitality that people in their middle age don’t because of their focus on career and family.”
Mr. Vander Ark, a Byron Center, Mich. native, said he stepped down as director in 2005 because he felt it was time for a younger conductor and he wanted time to travel. He has remained with the band, though, playing the euphonium, a brass instrument he hadn’t picked up in years, and directing the Prime Time Pops Band, a smaller group of Prime Time members who play at senior centers and schools.
Mr. Peterson called Mr. Vander Ark his mentor and “the heart and soul of the group.”
“We’re both pretty low-key,” Mr. Peterson said. “Both of us try to use humor to teach. I use it a little bit more.”
Mrs. Anderson, the flutist, said Mr. Vander Ark emphasizes a legato or smooth, flowing approach in his conducting while Mr. Peterson stresses precision and the beat. “I think Van conducts from the heart. They’re both good musicians. They both want you to get it right.”
Prime Time Band will perform its 15th anniversary concert at 2 p.m. Dec. 12 at San Marcos High School, 4750 Hollister Ave.
J.B. “Van” Vander Ark, co-founder and original director, will conduct the band playing his favorite pieces that the ensemble performed from 1995-2005. Jeff Peterson, the current director, will lead the band in other selections.
For more about the band, call band manager Toni Straka at 962-6983 or go to [www.ptband.org].
-
Generations of Jazz ’10 - Silver Swing Band
Nicolas Coffman, Director
Iowa City New Horizons Band
You Tube Video
November 22, 2010 -
Valley Seniors Learn to Play Instruments to Fulfill Dreams, Stay Mentally Healthy
ABC News
Story by Mike Pelton
October 10, 2010 -
Music - For the Health of It!
A Robert Byrne Film, Hired Gun TV
The Academy Band
Wilmington, Delaware
June 2010 -
Band Camp or Bust! Prime Time Band Members Ready to Hit the Road.
Dave Mason, Santa Barbara News-Press
March 10, 2010
Click to Open/CloseToni Straka plans to take several trucks when she hits the road. She needs them to transport percussion instruments -- everything from timpani to cymbals to a xylophone.
But instead of going to a concert hall, Mrs. Straka is heading to a rustic lodge, nestled in the tall pines of Cambria, where she and other musicians from throughout the country, all 50 and older, will learn 15 new works in a week of nonstop playing.
It’s time for band camp.
“It’s like going off to camp, except no one sends you any brownies,” the 71-year-old Santa Barbara percussionist said. “But you get away from home, and all your meals are served. What more can you ask for?”
Cambria Pines Band Camp 2010, hosted by Santa Barbara-based Prime Time Band, is set for Sunday through March 19 at the Cambria Pines Lodge. Members from New Horizons bands throughout the U.S. will be there to rehearse all week, day and night. Prime Time Band is affiliated with the New Horizons International Music Association.
When they’re not playing, the 90 camp participants and their spouses can take in the sights, which include nearby Hearst Castle. Alto saxophonist Judy Carr, 66, of Santa Barbara recalled seeing seals on a nearby shore back during one of the previous Cambria Pines camps.
Prime Time Band, open to anyone 50 or older, hosted the camps there in 2002, 2004 and 2006, said J.B. “Van” Vander Ark, who, as camp coordinator, was busy putting music into folders on a recent day at his Santa Barbara home.
This year, camp participants will be led by conductor Roy Ernst, the Tarpon Springs, Florida, founder of New Horizons bands, in songs such as “Brazil: Ceremony, Song & Samba” by Robert W. Smith and “Salute to the Cinema,” a medley of pieces such as “Hooray for Hollywood” and “Over the Rainbow,” arranged by Carl Strommen. Conductor Lou Sbrana of Santa Rosa will direct the group in works such as “Rain,” a medley of well-weathered songs such as “Singing in the Rain.” Peter Ziegler of Madison, Wisconsin, will direct the camp in songs such as “Fairest of the Fair” by march king John Phillip Sousa and “Fantasy on a Japanese Folk Song” by Samuel R. Hazo.
Band camp participants won’t get their music until the first day of camp, said Mr. Vander Ark, 76, who taught band and orchestra from 1958 to 1993 at La Colina Junior High School before co-founding Prime Time Band in 1995. He directed the group until he handed the baton over to Jeff Peterson in 2005 and now plays euphonium, sort of a half-size version of a tuba.
Prime Time Band alternates its West Coast camp hosting duties with New Horizons bands in Santa Rosa; Olympia, Washington; and Bend, Oregon, Mr. Vander Ark said.
No more slots are available in the camp, which reached capacity in June, Mr. Vander Ark said. “People from the Midwest and East Coast love to come out here in the wintertime. We’ve had people from Iowa City; Atlanta, Georgia; Madison, Wisconsin; and Rochester, New York. We’ve had people from Canada, Florida, Arizona, Washington, Oregon and California.”
Cambria is a small artsy town, with dozens of wineries nearby, antique stores, lots of window shopping and a beach to walk on, Mr. Vander Ark said. “For someone from Iowa, that’s very unique. It’s a special treat for the out-of-state visitors to go and play golf. They can’t play in the snow in the middle of the winter.”
Twenty-eight of Prime Time Band’s 72 members are attending this year’s camp, Mr. Vander Ark said. “It can’t help but make the band better when the participating band members return with all this enthusiasm. It charges everyone up.”
Normally Prime Time Band members get just a weekly rehearsal on Tuesdays at the La Colina Junior High School band room in Santa Barbara.
Band camp means a lot more practice.
“In four and a half days, we will rehearse 20 hours with three conductors,” Mr. Vander Ark said. “It’s not focused on the performance of 15 pieces. It’s the enjoyment of learning new music. It’s like a large book club reading together. We rehearse in the mornings and evenings, and we make new friends.”
“Because of the common ground of playing music, it’s like the first time you meet them, you’ve know them your entire life,” Mr. Vander Ark said. “There’s no competition as to which band (from various cities) is better. We play music together.”
“Besides,” he added with a grin, “it keeps us off the streets.”
And out of the woods. Unlike youth camps, the New Horizons gatherings allow participants to stay in a lodge rather than roughing it in tents.
New Horizons holds six to eight band camps each year throughout the United States, in places varying from Aspen, Colorado, to Door County, Wisconsin, and Chautauqua, New York, Mr. Vander Ark said.
“For one of the drummers coming from Phoenix, it will be her 46th band camp in 15 years,” Mr. Vander Ark said. “Once you go to one, wherever it is, you want to go to more of them. It’s such an uplifting experience.”
He said the New Horizons band camps are less competitive than high school band camps.
“It just encourages you to practice more, to be open to working harder and experiencing new kinds of music,” Mr. Vander Ark said.
Added Mrs. Straka: “You go home and think, ‘I didn’t know I could do that.’”
Mrs. Carr, a substitute organist at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Goleta, said the camp is a great way to meet musicians from all over the country. “We see some of the same people each time.”
“We have every level of player. It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes,” she said. “A lot of us are beginners. We have the same goal: a love of music.”
Participants will play their pieces in a free concert at 7 p.m. March 18 at Cambria Pines Lodge for guests, friends and spouses whom Mrs. Straka said are called -- no kidding -- “Band-Aids.” That includes her husband, Bill, who plays trumpet in Prime Time Band but decided this year to just enjoy the scenery in Cambria.
In addition to the full band rehearsals, people will get together in small groups in the afternoons for impromptu jam sessions, which could include some Dixieland, Mr. Vander Ark said.
Mrs. Carr added that musicians meet separately for sectional rehearsals throughout the camp.
Ken Lincoln, a Prime Time Band member going to the camp, said he likes learning from the various directors.
“Each conductor is different. We pick up different ideas from each one,” said Mr. Lincoln, 87, who joined Prime Time Band in 2003 after decades of not playing his trombone.
The Santa Barbara resident, who played in concert and marching bands at Stanford University in his younger days, recalled one of the most difficult pieces at a band camp was a medley of songs from “Les Miserables.”
He added that at his age, reading all the fast notes is a challenge. But he said he plans to keep performing as long as he can.
“It depends on what you call ‘good,’” he said with a laugh when asked about the quality of his playing.
Mr. Vander Ark said this year’s camp will end with Mr. Lincoln, his fellow musicians and their spouses and friends -- an estimated 111 people -- in a sing-along of campfire songs.
-
Retired Players Get a Tuneup
Corvallis Gazette-Times, Oregon
Story be Nancy Raskauskas
February 11, 2010 -
Adults Find Joy in Childhood Instruments
FOX 26 TV, Houston, Texas
Story by Greg Groogan
December 14, 2009 -
USC Gives Older Musicians Chance to Band Together
The State, Columbia, South Carolina
Story by Dawn Hinshaw
December 4, 2009 -
Press Release - The NAMM Foundation Awards New Horizons International Music Association, Inc. (NHIMA) Grant to Support Phase II Lift Off New Horizons Music Programs
Rochester, New York
June 20, 2009 -
Retirement - Rekindling the Creative Spark as You Age
Newsweek Showcase Archives
June 17, 2009
Click to Open/CloseMusic Making Turns Out to Be a Hit
The more than 60 members of the Iowa City New Horizons Band have discovered a creative form of play in making music together. Since 1995, the band has provided an opportunity for adults 50 and older to learn or continue to play musical instruments.
Band leader Don Coffman, Ph.D., comments, “New Horizon Band members taught me that having fun and never losing sight of fostering social relationships are as important as making music.” Two times a week, band members meet at a local senior center to rehearse for a performance and concentrate on learning to play better.
Coffman is a professor of music education at The University of Iowa. Student teachers from the university provide additional support and motivation for band members, who thrive on the encouragement of younger professionals.
Coffman has also organized several intergenerational band concerts with players ranging from elementary school students to seniors. “Music is timeless,” observes a French horn musician. “We don’t think about age, we just make good music together.”
-
Duke New Horizons Band Hosts “Spring Fling”
Duke Today, Duke University, North Carolina
Story by Stuart Wells
May 6, 2009 -
New Horizons - Retired Local Coach Trades Whistles for Woodwinds
The Observer, Dunkirk, New York
March 18, 2009 -
Band Gives Older Adults a Chance to Learn the Joys of Playing an Instrument
The Reno Gazette-Journal, Reno, Nevada
Story by Forrest Hartman
February 3, 2009
