MID AMERICA FREEDOM BAND ANNOUNCES 17TH SEASON

Mid America Freedom Band’s 17th season is all about celebrating regal history with a high-art-meets-high-camp twist. Titled “Kyngs And Qweens,” this season’s four programs honor and satirize pomp and circumstance, war and peace, sacred and profane, those in power and those without.

ROYAL CORTÈGE

Sunday, October 20, 2019
5:00 p.m.
Gem Theater, American Jazz Museum
1615 E. 18th St., Kansas City, MO, 64108

Egyptian queens, warrior khans, long-reigning monarchs, and animated princesses all get their due with MAFB’s fall concert featuring Amparo Edo Biol’s Cleopatra, Julie Giroux’s Khan, Benjamin Britten’s “Five Courtly Dances” from Gloriana, Joe Hisaishi’s score to Princess Mononoke, Chad “Sir Wick” Hughes’ Lazarus: A Peasant’s Song, and Omar Thomas’ A Mother of a Revolution!, which was composed in honor of Marsha P. Johnson, the queen mother and first brickthrower of the Stonewall Riots.

MERRY SCHTICKMAS

Sunday, December 15, 2019
5 p.m.
Lyric Opera of Kansas City
1725 Holmes St, Kansas City, MO 64108

Oh no! The court jester got his hands on this holiday program and messed everything up by including David Lovrien’s Minor Alterations: Carols from the Dark Side, a barking version of “Jingle Bells,” Edwin Franco Goldman’s Christmas March, the premiere of Lee Hartman’s Merry Mixedmetermas, and more Schlittenfahrts than you can shake a sleigh bell at alongside Anthony O’Toole’s Once in Royal David’s City and Anne McGinty’s arrangement of Auld Lang Syne.

TOLKIEN AND THE GREAT WAR

Sunday, March 1, 2020
2 p.m.
J.C. Nichols Auditorium, National World War I Museum and Memorial
2 Memorial Dr., Kansas City, MO

J.R.R. Tolkien’s service in World War I greatly inspired the creation of Middle Earth, and this free educational concert focuses on those connections while paired with musical works inspired by Tolkien including Annie Lennox’s Into the West, Howard Shore’s score to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and Johan De Meij’s dynamic Symphony No. 1, “The Lord of the Rings.”

NOBLE HOUSES

Saturday, May 2, 2020
7:30 pm
Gem Theater, American Jazz Museum
1615 E. 18th St., Kansas City, MO, 64108

In honor of our favorite mother-daughter queens Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli, MAFB will premiere a commissioned double concerto by Stacy Busch for local drag queen musicians clarinetist Tajma Stetson and bassoonist Mrs. Jones. Aulis Sallinen’s Palace Rhapsody, Elton John’s Lion King, Ramin Djawadi’s score to Game of Thrones, and a new arrangement of Manuel De Falla’s rapturous Nights in the Gardens of Spain by Federika Morado complement the program.

Season and individual tickets go on sale August 1, 2019, at www.freedomband.com. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door. Season tickets are $25. Admission to the February concert is free.

Season 17

All programs subject to change.

Royal Cortège

Amparo Edo Biol: Cleopatra
Arthur Bliss: Welcome the Queen
Benjamin Britten: “Five Courtly Dances” from Gloriana
Julie Giroux: Khan
Ralph Raymond Hays: And they lived… you know…
Joe Hisaishi: Princess Mononoke
Chad “Sir Wick” Hughes: Lazarus: A Peasant’s Song
Queen Lili’uokalani: Selected Works
John Philip Sousa: Nobles of the Mystic Shrine
Omar Thomas: A Mother of a Revolution!

Merry Schtickmas

Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg, and Wandra Merrell: Dominick the Donkey
Richard Eilenberg: Petersburger Schlittenfahrt
Julie Giroux: I Got Rhythm for Christmas
Edwin Franco Goldman: Christmas March
Lee Hartman: Merry Mixedmetermas (world premiere)
Peter Ippolito: Christmas Smiles
David Lovrien: Minor Alterations
David Lovrien: Minor Alterations II: Carols from the Dark Side
Anne McGinty: Auld Lang Syne
Leopold Mozart: Schlittenfahrt
Paul Murtha: Holiday Funny Favorites
Anthony O’Toole: Once in Royal David’s City

Tolkien and The Great War

David Avshalomov: The Last Stand
George Butterworth: Idyll – Banks of the Green Willow
Johan De Meij: Symphony No. 1 “The Lord of the Rings”
Annie Lennox: Into the West
Howard Shore: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
New Work: TBD

Royal Houses

Stacy Busch: Drag Queen Double Concerto (world premiere, commission)
Manuel De Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain
Claude Debussy: Sunken Cathedral
Ramin Djawadi: Game of Thrones
Elton John: Lion King
Alan Jay Lerner and Frank Loewe: Camelot
Erik Morales: The Hive
Aulis Sallinen: Palace Rhapsody

The Mid America Freedom Band is a community ensemble of LGBT and allied instrumental musicians with 70+ playing members. MAFB provides opportunities for instrumental music lovers to share their passion of performance with the diverse community of Kansas City. It strives for excellence while promoting equality, fostering education, and celebrating the joy shared through music.