Horns of Plenty
News & Observer
G. D. Gearino
May 13, 1998
The Chapel Hill Village Band turns 25 tonight, but only Aarne and Ralph can claim to
feel every one of those years in their lips.
Aarne Vesilind, an environmental engineering professor at Duke University, play the
baritone horn. Ralph Todd, a retired military man, plays the cornet. While other
musicians have come and gone -- even the band's founding conductor gave up his
baton a few years back -- only these two have stayed on through thick and thin,
high and low, sharp and flat.
"It just feels good to be part of the band." Vesilind says. "If we didn't have the
Village Band, we'd have to invent it."
The band is a collection of 60 or so amateur musicians who practice once a week
and perform in concerts a half dozen times a year. Many communities have similar
groups -- Cary, Raleigh and Durham all have their own versions -- and those groups
usually have similar tastes in music: lots of Sousa, no Metallica.
But as you might expect, things in Chapel Hill are a little. . .different.
There's Todd, for one. He's a Greensboro native, a veteran of the big band circuit
and an Army careerist who has lived in Europe, Japan and the Middle East. Oh, and
he's 85 years old.
"I don't have the breathing capacity I used to have, the endurance I used to have,
and the visual acuity I used to have." he admits. Translated, that means he's lost a
little lip and doesn't see the sheet music as well as he once did.
No matter. An aging Todd is better than many trumpeters in their prime. He spent
seven years playing professionally in big bands, then another 27 playing in various
combos formed during his military career. He still practices every day, locking
himself in a back bedroom of his apartment at the Carolina Meadows retirement
center.
He says his neighbors don't mind, and the walls are soundproof anyway. But it
probably helps that age has provided them with the noise muffling system that
awaits us all.
Then there's Vesilind. If he's not the only baritone playing, environmental
engineering teaching native of the quaintly named town of Beaver, PA, we'd like to
find the other.
Still not convinced? Meet Joe Lowman.
He's the tuba player. He's also a fellow who has the mouthpiece from his tuba with
him most times. He recently took it to England, so that he could drop into music
instrument shops there and play their tubas, but not leave American germs behind.
He also sometimes fishes the mouthpiece out of his pocket and practices blowing
the tuba parts as he drives, or practices while he's waiting for a bus.
"But when somebody walks up, I stop." he claims.
The band was formed in 1973 when Dan Margoni, then a music teacher at Phillips
Middle School in Chapel Hill, began asking his students whether their parents were
musicians. To the ones who nodded, Margoni posed another question: Would they
be interested in playing in a band?
This is, of course, a haphazard way to form a band. You run the risk of ending up
with 16 saxophone players and nobody else. The first year was a struggle to get the
right mixture of music and instruments in place, Margoni remembers.
But things worked themselves out. The band took root, and for a dozen years
Margoni was its leader. There came the day though, "when I got tired of it. All day
long I was involved in teaching band," he says, and then at night he would do it
again.
Also, he says, there's a limit to the number of times you can hear a Sousa march.
Vesilind suspects Margoni got frustrated. "I think he wanted to have a band that was
really good, but he wasn't able to get the people."
The quality of the musicianship may have improved since then, but amateurism is
the band's defining characteristic. None of its musicians is paid. In fact, Lowman
notes: "We're the opposite of professionals. We pay to get to do it."
The band is supported by contributions from its members, with only conductor Pam
Halverson collecting a check. No money is received from the town whose name the
band carries -- a situation that is clearly a tender spot.
"The town of Chapel Hill has done absolutely nothing to help us, to recognize that
we're a municipal treasure," Vesilind says. In contrast, "the Town of Carrboro has
been marvelous."
(The affection is returned, however. On Sunday, the band scheduled a Sousa
concert on the Carrboro Commons, expecting -- until rain canceled it -- to set up
under the farmer's market shelter and play for all comers. It will be held later.)
The band also is amateur in the sense that almost anyone who wants to be in the
band can join. "You just show up," Vesilind says. "if you feel comfortable at our
level" -- which he describes as equal to a good high school band -- "then you just
join."
But there's a clear non amateurish level of commitment involved.
The band has a two-hour practice every Monday night from September through
June. The location varies: "We jump from one rehearsal hall to the next," Todd
says. "We don't have a home. It makes it especially had on the percussion boys."
A flute player doesn't much care where she practices, but the person who has to
horse a kettle drum around cares deeply.
Also, the band members may be amateurs, but they need instruments just like the
professionals have. Lowman, for instance started with a used tuba, but eventually
invested in a Canadian made instrument "that's worth more than any of my cars," he
says.
Finally, Halverson confesses to being a bit of a taskmaster. The band members may
be amateur, and they may be will regarded in their professional fields -- there are
lots of college professors, with a scattering of scientists, lab workers, accountants,
dentists and lawyers thrown in -- but to Halverson, they can be an unruly bunch.
Her solution?
"You keep a horn in their mouth so they can't talk," she says, "All musicians are kids
at heart."