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Hollis Town Band has hosted annual Strawberry Festival since its beginnings

HOLLIS – It may be called the Hollis Town Band, but its 60 members come from near and far to rehearse upstairs at Town Hall on Wednesday evenings.

While interviewing some of the musicians with lengthy tenure in the band, this reporter was invited to flip through the scrapbook, only to discover that this year marks the 70th anniversary of its founding. It’s also the 35th anniversary of co-
sponsoring the annual Strawberry Festival with the Hollis Woman’s Club, with the 2013 edition scheduled for Sunday.

According to old documents, the Hollis Church School Band – as it was initially called – was organized in 1943 by Dr. W.H. Weston, the Rev. Walter Brockway, Elaine Boulton, Granville Stearns, Ernie Hardy and Helen Bell. It consisted of 30 members, including 18 Hollis High School students. Elmer Wilson was invited to be the first director. Wilson was well-known at the time for having founded the Nashua Symphony Orchestra in 1923 (now known as Symphony New Hampshire, it is the state’s oldest professional orchestra) and was also director of the Nashua school bands.

“I’ll buy the tuba if you’ll play it.”

In a letter dictated by Weston in the 1960s, he describes the band’s inception:

“Samuel Williams agreed to pay for a tuba if Winthrop Carter Sr. would blow it at the first band concert. Carter not only agreed but gave an equivalent sum to the band to use as it wished.

“Rehearsals began in the fall and the first concert was held in the Hardy Parish Hall at Christmas. It was far from perfect but showed vast progress, received enthusiasm which continued to grow.”

The band collected 10 cents at each rehearsal to help pay for music. Members were also encouraged to take private music lessons.

Wilson stepped down as director after the first year, and was replaced by Chester Cunningholm, while some of the mothers made uniforms consisting of dark blouses, white trousers, capes with red waistbands and caps.

By 1950, the band was performing in Memorial Day parades in Pepperell, Mass., Lyndeborough, Hollis and New Boston, as well as presenting biweekly concerts in front of the church throughout the summer, under the direction of Bernie Larkin.

The first
Strawberry Festival

The first mention of the Strawberry Festival is in a newspaper article from 1946. When the Strawberry Festival began, it was run entirely by the band. As it grew, the band eventually realized it needed help with the food aspect of the event, so it enlisted the help of the Women’s Club in 1978, and the two groups have jointly sponsored the festival ever since.

Members of the Woman’s Club and the Hollis Town Band get together on the Friday morning before the Strawberry Festival to hull the berries to get them ready for the festival on Sunday. The Woman’s Club bakes the shortcakes and then sells the desserts while the band entertains, and the two groups split the proceeds down the middle.

The band
and festival grow

By the mid-1950s, Henry J. Dumaine was the director, and there are photos of the band playing on top of Crotched Mountain and marching along the Amherst green. A Telegraph headline from 1961 boasts “1,000 Attend Strawberry Festival.” The tally was 1,200 the next year.

In 1966, the name was officially changed to the Hollis Band Association, and Harry Tong began a lengthy stint as director. Other than a few years covered by Wilbur Bigalow and Frank Iovieno in the late ’70s, Tong remained director until 1985, when David Bailey – the current director – arrived.

Headlines from 1968 put Strawberry Festival attendance at 2,000, while the 1977 event was held despite downpours.

David Bailey becomes director

Bailey has conducted the band for almost 30 years. He started in September 1985, only two weeks before a concert at Combustion Engineering’s huge celebration at its headquarters in Windsor Locks, Conn.

“I had to get used to the band and the band had to get used to me in only two rehearsals,” he said. “It was a great trial by fire and we all did ourselves proud.”

Close on the heels of that initial success was the annual Apple Festival in town.

“I had no idea how the mechanics worked,” he recalled, “but luckily there were enough people in the band who understood how things worked, so I didn’t have to do very much other than conduct and serve as master of ceremonies.”

Bailey quickly settled into the pattern of parades, festivals and concerts, along with improvements and changes over the years. He described how the band used to use a human chain to move chairs from the basement of Hollis Town Hall onto a truck to set up for festivals, and then again in reverse at the end of the concert.

The association eventually was given a panel truck with no engine, which was fitted with a trailer hitch so it could be towed to Monument Square. The chairs and tables were stored inside for many years before it finally died. The band eventually bought a trailer, which Bailey said would have been “unthinkable” when he first started conducting the band.

Dedicated musicians

The longest-standing member of the current Hollis Town Band is saxophonist Jon Rock, who lives in Hollis. He joined in 1962 when he was in high school, and other than some time off while he attended college, he has been a fixture ever since.

“It’s all fun,” he said. “Of all the groups I’m in, this is the one night I don’t let anything get in the way. I enjoy this more than any other group because it’s relaxed. We get a lot done.”

Kathy Raymond Madden played in the Hollis band in the late 1940s when she was in high school in Nashua. She left the area to attend college and didn’t return until a few years ago, when she moved to Peterborough with her husband Dave, who composes band music.

“I played in a big band in Arizona,” she said, “but didn’t have any place to play here.”

Clark Lambert has been playing timpani and percussion since he was in the 8th grade. He moved from Concord, Mass., to Hollis in 1970 and, naturally, joined the local band. He has many colorful memories of his decades in the band, including a storm just before the Strawberry Festival a few years ago.

“I had a houseful of guests,” he said, “and the plan was to go to the festival. There was a horrendous lightning storm, and it hit a tree to the left of the common. It came down and wiped out all the power lines. We got soaked, the music got soaked, my drums got soaked. I spent two hours taking them apart to dry out.”

Lambert also had some fun stories about parades, particularly riding home in a trailer from a Christmas parade in Concord.

“At the end of the parade, the guy took a shortcut down (Route) 393,” he recalled. “He was driving 65 mph and we were in the back of a flatbed, cold and frozen. It was absolutely horrible.”

Challenging music
and variety

Another longtime member is Ron Calabro, of Amherst, who has been playing the saxophone in the band for about 30 years. What keeps him coming back?

“There is a strong variety of music that is always challenging,” he said. “When you are challenged, you grow and mature. We blend classical music, show tunes and standards, so it takes more discipline. As a soloist, I listen to singers like Ella Fitzgerald. Music has to have color to bring out the beauty, and I rely on lyrics for phrasing.”

At the Strawberry Festival this weekend, Calabro will play “I Got Plenty o’ Nothin’” from “Porgy and Bess” and popular tune “What a Wonderful World.”

Burns Fisher, of Brookline, has played in bands on and off for years, and began playing in the Hollis Town Band when his daughter was in fourth grade so she could perform, too. He brags about the time she got to play the solo in the Mozart Clarinet Concerto.

“It was wonderful playing in the band with her,” he said. “I’m retired now but I like Hollis Band so much that I’ve decided to stick with it.”

Loony Tunes
and Downpours

Bruce Guttman, of Londonderry, had just moved to New Hampshire in 1983 when he ran into then-
director Harry Tong at Hampshire Music Store, which used to be on Route 101A in Nashua. Tong persuaded the trombonist to join the band.

“I had a little money left after the move and decided to splurge on a good trombone,” Guttman said. “I joined the band, and they put up with me. I was bad but eventually got better.”

He improved enough that for the past 20 years, he has been one of their regular soloists. One of his favorite selections is the aria “Largo al factotum” from “The Barber of Seville.” Familiar to most as the Figaro song, which was immortalized by Bugs Bunny, it’s a sure crowd-pleaser.

Like many other musicians, Guttman plays in more than one ensemble. He reminisced about a time when he had to play in three groups in the same parade.

Guttman also recalled a concert in Dunstable, Mass., where the band was performing in a newly-built gazebo.

“They had just completed the gazebo, but it was missing one thing: a roof,” he said. “They crowded 60 of us on the gazebo, which wasn’t big enough. The heavens opened up, but we couldn’t get off. All we could do was try to protect the music and our instruments. People scattered for their cars, the sun came out, we played and they cheered.”

In addition to playing trombone, Guttman has served as secretary of the organization, and is one of those critical volunteers who help set up equipment before concerts and stay late until everything is put away.

The band today

The Hollis Town Band has a blend of musicians of all different ability levels, from elementary school age members to seasoned performers. The more experienced musicians serve as the backbone of the band’s sound and provide the support for other less-confident musicians to be able to play beyond what they may think their limitations are.

“As a conductor, I have been very blessed with the musicians who have chosen to play in the Hollis Town Band,” Bailey said. “Most people come, find they love playing in the Hollis Town Band and stay for a long time. That makes my job much easier – when I’m considering what new music to program for the band, I don’t have to think about whether we would be able to play it. I just have to think whether we would enjoy playing it and whether our audiences would enjoy hearing it.”