In Its 175th Season, the Burlington Concert Band Provides Free Music and Community Connection

While Burlington’s Waterfront Park is a hot spot for major summer concerts, from the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival to Grand Point North, those in the know head just up the hill for a mellower music tradition many years in the making.

On a recent Sunday evening, more than 40 musicians in the Burlington Concert Band regaled audiences in Battery Park with a medley from the musical Chicago, a John Philip Sousa march and other selections. People lazed on blankets and chairs on the grass; others strolled or biked by. Lake Champlain glinted in the sunset, framed by the open-ended band shell.

Barring thunderstorms and heavy rain, the Burlington Concert Band performs these free summertime concerts every Sunday night — and annually on July 3 as part of the city’s Independence Day celebration.

Not many music groups in the area can claim to predate the Civil War, but this one began as the Burlington Cornet Band in 1851 and has been playing for 175 years. It will celebrate by dedicating its concert on Sunday, July 20, to the anniversary.

For the occasion, musical director Whitney Lussier, 32, a Charlotte-born trombone player with a music education degree from St. Olaf College in Minnesota, has invited back former conductors, guest conductors (including former Vermont governor Jim Douglas) and musicians. The band shell itself commemorates a former conductor: Built in 1978, it is named for Burlington-born Joseph F. Lechnyr, who led the band from 1927 to 1957.

Town bands primarily play marches — a military tradition — along with show tunes, jazz, pop songs and the odd classical piece. Lussier hasn’t chosen the 175th anniversary music yet, she said by phone, but, per tradition, the band will open with “Salute to Burlington” by former conductor George Sherman. The Richmond native, who led from 1878 to 1917, wrote marches so well known that Sousa conducted them, according to Gary Aubin’s 2023 History of Town Bands in Vermont.

All concerts end with the national anthems “O Canada” and “The Star Spangled Banner.”

In addition to upholding tradition, the Burlington Concert Band offers something rare: an intergenerational experience. Lussier said current musicians range from high school juniors to people in their late seventies. The members mingle weekly at their free rehearsal space at St. Mark Catholic Church on North Avenue, where the band also gives an end-of-season concert.

That’s one aspect that Nick Tatakis, a 29-year-old clarinetist in the band, appreciates. Tatakis joined in 2023 after overhearing the concerts from his home in the Old North End. He attended one out of curiosity and then found a call for musicians online. He now serves as the ensemble’s equipment and web manager.

“One thing that really warms my heart about the band is that it’s a space for people of all ages,” said Tatakis, who played clarinet from fourth through 12th grades and took it up again after graduating from the University of Vermont. “That makes the band really special. I feel like I don’t have many spaces where I’m around people of all those ages.”

From the oboist sitting beside him, Tatakis added, he learned about Town Meeting TV, Chittenden County’s government-access TV channel, with which he then began volunteering. “That’s another great institution I can be proud of having in my community that I didn’t really know about,” he said.

The band’s community-building extends even to passersby. At this season’s opening concert, Lussier recalled, most of the clarinetists were out due to illness, but then a man toting a clarinet case appeared.

“At the break, he came up to chat,” Lussier said. “We said, ‘Hey, do you want to play? We have extra folders.’ He played well. He was from out of town, so I don’t think we’ll see him again, but we did appreciate his support.”

While the musicians are volunteers, the band does need money to operate. Costs such as the conductor’s fee, music, chairs, music stands and equipment insurance are covered by Burlington Parks, Recreation & Waterfront.

The city had been giving the band an annual stipend of $4,000 since at least the 1950s, according to Lussier’s predecessor, Larry Solt, who led it from 2018 to 2022 and now plays trumpet in the ensemble. Solt and a friend approached mayor Miro Weinberger during his tenure and proposed an increase, given the intervening half-century. The mayor raised the contribution to $5,000.

Solt, who is writing a history of the Burlington Concert Band’s 22 conductors, said even that modest amount is now at risk, since Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak’s discovery in late June that the city budget is short an additional $1.8 million.

The Burlington Concert Band could use continued support. Its July 3 concert is always packed, but at Sunday concerts, Tatakis noted, “If we have as many people in the audience as we have in the band, that’s a good thing.” In addition to competing forms of entertainment, increased numbers of unhoused and addicted individuals in the park have affected attendance.

“It’s definitely something we have to address as a band, because we play in a public park where people might have set up a bit, and as compassionately as possible, we talk with them about how we’ve reserved this space to play a concert,” said Tatakis, who works as a substance misuse prevention consultant for the Vermont Department of Health.

To combat the problem, a designated Parks & Rec employee readies the band shell and stays for the duration of each concert, and community resource officers from the police department are on call. In Lussier’s estimation, the interference has decreased since her first year.

Given the Burlington Concert Band’s longevity, one hopes it can overcome recent challenges. It’s not the oldest of Vermont’s town bands: St. Johnsbury’s, founded in 1830, takes that prize and is the third oldest in the country, according to its website.

But Burlington’s band, one of at least 30 active town bands in the state, is a key part of city pride with a gem of a setting.

“It’s such a great way to be outside and enjoy Burlington,” Tatakis said. “When the weather is great, it is, in my mind, unmatched.”

This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2025.

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