Daxson Hale is a little nervous. He’s the founding member and current president of the Art City Concert Band, which has been getting ready for a Christmas concert at the Springville Library. It’s not stage fright; he’s done enough shows to not have to worry about that, but it’s the performance itself. It’s the preparation—or the lack thereof—that has him a little on edge.
“We just had a very challenging concert,” he says, with frank honesty. “It was challenging music and we did not have time. We knew that if we spread ourselves too thin trying to prepare the Christmas music, the other challenging music that we were preparing for our fall concert would not be ready. So, now we’re trying to do something that’s going to be very difficult… We’re trying to put together a Christmas concert with two rehearsals. The challenge there, of course, is although there are many great musicians in the group, that’s just not very much time.”
He’s right. A concert with only two rehearsals isn’t very much at all, but the talented group of musicians is poised to pull it off. They’re not professionals, not many of them, anyway. They’re a group of volunteers looking for an opportunity to play. In fact, that was the idea that spawned the whole project.
Hale, a saxophonist who hadn’t really touched his instrument since high school, was looking for the chance to play again. Now 36 years old, there weren’t many opportunities. By his own admission, the saxophone isn’t the most desired instrument outside of concert bands. The closest concert bands were large, established groups and the closest ones were in the north end of the valley, a fair bit farther than he was hoping for. With nothing nearby, Hale thought the best move would be to start the group himself.
“I had grown up playing in community groups. I played in an orchestra in southern Idaho that my grandpa and my mom were founding members of,” Hale said. “They started that up with some friends. I had been talking to my mom about it for a while. I was like, ‘Maybe I should just start my own group.’ And so I reached out to Springville High School, because I knew that they would probably be the best place to rehearse.”
Hale reached out to the band director at the high school, Amanda Manning, who had only recently started teaching at Springville High. When he asked her if she was interested, she was enthusiastic about the opportunity. Being a teacher, she had been placed in a position where she often directed music, but a saxophonist herself, didn’t have as many opportunities to play as she would have liked. Now, she had one, and Hale not only had his first bandmate, but a place for them to rehearse.
The Art City Concert Band held their first rehearsal in October 2023, with fewer than a dozen musicians, simply playing songs together that they all knew. It was a sparse group, with a few playing clarinets, other flutes, and of course a couple playing saxophones. Their first performance took place later that year at the Springville Holiday Festival.
“That was kind of funny because it was very cold, and it was snowing on us, and we didn’t have lights. We couldn’t see our music and there were more people in the band than there were in the audience. I think we had 15 people there,” he recalled.
Since that time, the concert band has grown. Hale reached out to the retired Springville High School band conductor, Brian Tobler, who helped them in their recruiting efforts. And later, the group contacted Shawn Smith, the professor of conducting and director of bands in the Brigham Young University School of Music. He believed in the band’s mission and believed in the idea of adults continuing to play music throughout their lives. He joined the band in January of this year as director, which lent credibility to the young group and helped expand the band.
The group has reached nearly 40 members, with most of the members in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, although there are members in their 60s and 70s as well. Currently, the band consists of two oboists; six to eight flutists; six to eight clarinetists; four or five trumpeters; hornists; three tubaists; a rotating cadre of percussionists; a trombonist; and, of course, five or six saxophonists between alto, tenor and soprano.
As for their upcoming concert, it takes place at Springville Library on December 11 at 7 p.m. And with the amount of talent and combined experience, even two rehearsals should be enough. The musicians have been practicing at home in their free time, playing along with videos, and rehearsing their songs as much as they can so they’re ready for the limited time they have to play together.
“We’ve chosen fairly simple holiday, standard carols and songs that people recognize that are fairly easy pieces, and we’re going to see if this is doable,” Hale said. “And I think it will be, because we’ve had hard challenges in the past. … We’ll be able to pull it off.”
