The Glendale-based Arizona Winds Concert Band has become well-known throughout Greater Phoenix for its innovative programming and musical excellence. Its fans flock to its concerts by the hundreds, almost consistently filling its 1,300-seat performance venue to capacity for each of its five annual free concerts. The band’s theme-based programs periodically feature an audio/visual feast for its audience, providing a unique concert-going experience for all ages. On February 20th, the band will follow up its highly acclaimed October 2021 “Galactic Empires” production with yet another audio/visual delight featuring musical themes and video clips from many of the old blockbuster movies many of us grew up watching in front of the big screen. The free concert is slated for Sunday, February 20th in the Vista Center for the Arts, 15660 N. Parkview Place, Surprise.

Colonel Rich Shelton, the band’s Musical Director and Conductor, has selected eleven nostalgic blockbusters to feature on the band’s February concert. “Finding the right movie clips to fit the musical arrangements and then editing them into a precisely-timed production takes a great deal of work and patience”, said Colonel Shelton. “Combining the audio and visual components is challenging, but the end result is really quite stunning and rewarding”, added Shelton. “Other than the Phoenix Symphony, I don’t know of any other musical organization in Phoenix that has been as forward thinking as The Arizona Winds in combining these elements into multiple, unique concert-going experiences”, continued Shelton.

“Those of us who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s will remember watching a cartoon before the feature film at the theater. We’re going to open our concert the same way…with a cartoon. Well, actually a series of cartoon clips set to a unique composition called “Cartoon” depicting the various musical anecdotes and shenanigans composers use in writing for those cartoons”, said Shelton.

The full list of movies and music highlighted in the February concert includes the 1960 western “The Magnificent Seven” starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen and James Coburn; the Academy Award-winning 1958 romantic musical “South Pacific” based on Rogers & Hammerstein’s musical by the same name; the 1942 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, “Casablanca”, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman; the 1962 seven-time Academy Award-winning “Lawrence of Arabia” starring Peter O’Toole and Anthony Quinn; the 1952 romantic musical comedy “Singin’ in the Rain” starring Gene Kelley, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor; the 1959 record-breaking eleven-time Oscar winning blockbuster “Ben Hur” starring Charlton Heston; the 1963, second of twenty-six (so far) James Bond movies produced, “From Russia with Love”, starring Sean Connery; a six-time Academy Award winning musical comedy produced in 1951, “An American in Paris”; a five-time Oscar winner produced in 1956 and starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, “The King and I”; the epic 1956 Cecil B. DeMille blockbuster and Academy Award winner, “The Ten Commandments” starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner; and the granddaddy of them all and widely regarded as one of the greatest films in history, “The Wizard of Oz” starring Judy Garland.

The Arizona Winds’ final two concerts will be April 10th, “Flourishes for a Festival”, and June 5th, “America, the Dream Goes On”, a musical tribute to our men and women in uniform. You won’t want to miss a beat of the remainder of this exciting season of fun, new music and entertainment. Concerts are Sundays at 3:00 p.m. and admission is free. Invite your friends and be a part of something exciting!

For further information about this concert and future concerts, visit the band’s website at www.azwinds.com. Also on Facebook, Soundcloud and YouTube.