Sequim Gazette staff

Time to strike up the band.

The Sequim City Band invites the community to welcome spring as it presents the 2011 season opener, “Spring Fling,” at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 20, at the Sequim High School auditorium, 601 N. Sequim Ave.

Admission is free.

Under the direction of Sanford Feibus, the band will play a variety of music, including “Malagueña” by Ernesto Lecuona.  

The band has purchased a new marimba and is thrilled to introduce it to the audience with a trio performing “Serenade for a Picket Fence,” composed by Norman Leyden.

“We’re really excited about our new marimba,” Susie Herrick said, describing the piece as bright, cheerful and bouncy.

Keep listening and you will hear the marimba in other pieces, too, including arrangements from the Broadway musical “Mama Mia.”

Joel Yelland, a member of the percussion section and an accomplished vocalist, sings a baritone rendition of “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’” from “Porgy and Bess.”

Other pieces feature instrumental soloists Craig Buehler on alto saxophone and Nancy Reis on oboe. The piece played by Buehler is called “Harlem Nocturne.”

The band is known for its performance of marches and will play pieces by Fred Jewel, K. L. King and John Philip Sousa.

Herrick said the variety in pieces from Spanish to swing will be like taking “a trip around the world.”

It’s the first of nine performances throughout the year, most of them on the third Sunday of the month and most at the James Center of the Performing Arts near Carrie Blake Park (see schedule).

Weekly practices are held Mondays at 7 p.m. in Swisher Hall at the James Center for the Performing Arts, 563 N. Rhodefer Road.

For more information, call 683-8226.