Sunday, November 16, Cotter and Saint Mary’s University brought back an old tradition.

In the spring of 1995, the two bands got together with special guest Dr.Frank Bencriscutto and performed at the Performance Center at SMU.  All the music played during the concert had Minnesota connections.

Dr. Janet Heukeshoven and current Cotter band director Rick Peters have brought this shared concert back to life, bringing both bands together for one engaging performance.

“Janet and I thought it’d be a great idea to do a concert with both of the Cotter and the SMU community bands.” Peters said. “The Symphonic and SMU bands did two pieces of music as a combined band and it turned out great.”

This years’ concert didn’t have a specific theme of music like the first one, but that didn’t matter to Cotter teacher Sister Regina McKillip. “The music was flawless. The choice of pieces had a great balance, not too many slow and not to many fast songs. Really, a great concert all around.”

Each band performed two pieces of music during their set. The Concert band kicked the concert off with the Symphonic following. Next was the SMU brass-band then their full on community band. Closing out the show was the combined band, receiving a big roar from the crowd after they finished their final piece “Rough Rider”.

The next concert on the schedule is the Christmas concert.