Band’s First Concerts

The Band’s second official meeting, Wednesday, 03 Jun 1992, a new June practice schedule for Wednesdays the 10th, 17th, and 24th were handed out, and the band added more members to the original group in the 28 days between founding, and the first late June concert. The band switched to the present Thursday practices that summer, 1992 after the Farmers’ Market gigs.

The band held its first of two street performances for Oroville’s Thursday night Farmers’ Market on June 25th, 1992.  Jim Christensen has pictures of that gig.  At the second performance at the Farmers’ Market later that summer, Jimmy Cox, a Hollywood musician, and former OHS drummer under Jim Christensen, sat in with us.  That second date probably came later in July to allow the band a few more Wednesday practices.  Program notes from Winter Festival 1994 also supports that there were at least two gigs at the 1992 Farmers’ Market.

Later that summer of 1992, a public meeting at the Oroville State Theater discussed the “fate” of the building, and Jim Christensen announced that he directed a “community band” willing to play a benefit concert for the theater.  A date was set, and the band played its first Winter Festival concert January 1993.  In April 1993 the band played a Benefit Concert for Scott Damon (leukemia) at Oroville’s Nazarene Church, and 4July 1993 was our first patriotic concert.

Name Changes

The earliest band members and audiences never saw us perform as Oroville Symphonic Ensembles (OSE).  Before the first concert, an 03 June 1992 internal schedule for practices was already nicknaming us, “Oroville’s Concert Band”.

OSE was originally chosen as an organizational title to cover the possible collection of smaller ensembles, or groups, that might evolve after our humble beginnings.  This designation, however, was awkward and confusing, so the above-mentioned nickname proved more useful and accurate.

We are listed as the “Oroville Community Band” in the programs of the April 1993 Benefit Concert through Winter Festival 1995.  The remaining programs of 1995 are the first to show our present name, “Oroville Community Concert Band”, but we returned to “Oroville Community Band” 4July '96 through 4July '98.  November 1998, Oroville Community Concert Band became our group’s official title for periodic re-filing of our non-profit status, permanently replacing OES.

NEXT: Speaking of Ensembles, The Chorus Was Soon Added

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