Saratoga News

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Photograph by George Sakkestad

Conductor Craig Northrup founded the Saratoga Community Band in 1989 and has been at the helm ever since.

Big Band

The Saratoga Community Band is a big deal for many local residents

By Shannon Burkey

There are few requirements to join Craig Northrup's band. Being able to play an instrument helps, but a love and passion for music helps even more.

When Northrup founded the Saratoga Community Band in 1989, he wanted it to be a place where people with the music bug could come and play, even if they hadn't picked up an instrument in years.

"Everybody in the band has played before, but some of them hadn't played for 25 years before they started playing with us," Northrup says. "I'm always telling people that it doesn't matter how long it's been since they've played; just dust off your instrument and come have fun with us."

Northrup, a Saratoga resident, has long been known by many in the community because of his music.

In 1972, he took over as the music director at Saratoga High School and, under his leadership, the school's bands thrived. The symphonic band was invited to Vienna's prestigious International Youth and Music Festival, where it walked away with the prize of Vienna for being the best band at the competition. The marching band also achieved greatness by winning competitions and touring Europe twice.

Northrup retired from his position at the high school in 1982 because, by then, he was working as the director of the Vienna festival, a position he was asked to take in 1979 when he took the symphonic band back a second time. He held that position for 15 years and served as the band director at West Valley College for 15 years.

Northrup's experience conducting great bands was abundant, and in 1989 came to the attention of Saratoga Mayor Martha Clevenger.

"The mayor came up to me and said that we needed a community band in Saratoga and asked if I would conduct it," Northrup says. "I thought it sounded interesting, but at the time I didn't think I really had the time to organize it."

But when Clevenger got West Valley College on board as a sponsor, Northrup knew he couldn't pass up the opportunity to conduct Saratoga's first community band.

He began to send letters and make phone calls to all of his old students and music acquaintances asking them to join. Thirty-five members made up that first band 17 years ago. Today there are 80 members of all ages and walks of life who come from all over the Bay Area to play in the band.

"We have a CFO, a president of a company, an engineer, teachers, a restaurant manager, we have middle school students up to retirees--anything you can think of," Northrup says. "This is a low pressure band. We don't even have auditions, we just want people to come and have fun."

Assistant conductor Dick Robbins, a trombone player who has been in the band since the beginning, says it was just what he was looking for when a friend invited him to join all those years ago.

"I was really excited when this band got started. It's hard to find a group like this," Robbins says. "Playing with them is relaxing and it takes you out of your normal sphere of worry. I'll stay with them for as long as I can pick up the trombone."

Eventually, West Valley College stopped sponsoring the band. It now operates under Los Gatos-Saratoga Community Education and Recreation and is as strong as ever.

"I think we thrive because you never forget how to play an instrument. It's possible to pick up your instrument and play again after a long break," Robbins says. "That's the great thing about music; you can do it all your life."

Community bands aren't a new concept, and many musicians find them to be a wonderful outlet to continue to play music they otherwise wouldn't be able to play.

"It's amazing--the tradition of town bands has gone back forever. Every little village in Europe has a town band. Even many other cities in the Bay Area have them," Northrup says.

Ever since she picked up the oboe for the first time, Babette McKay says she knew she would never stop playing. But she didn't want to play professionally, so she began to look into community bands and what they could offer her.

Today she is no stranger to community bands. Before joining the Saratoga band, she played in the San Ramon Community Band and co-founded Milpitas' community band.

"I was a music major in school, but it got too competitive and it wasn't fun for me anymore. Most people quit, but it was so important for me to continue playing," McKay says. "Once I decided I wasn't going to be a professional musician, I started to have fun again. It's a joy to get out and continue to play without the pressure. I look forward to going to practice every week. Even my family knows it's my time."

Los Gatos resident Tom Beckmann grew up in Saratoga and played in the Saratoga High School Band under Northrup's direction. Since then he has continuously played percussion, playing in the band at UC-Berkeley during his college years then in various rock and jazz bands until he found his way back to Northrup and the community band.

"I was always playing in some sort of musical group. Being a drummer you get a lot of offers because the drums are fairly versatile and in all types of music," Beckmann says. "But I decided the structure of the community band was a nice thing to have. Other bands are created without any real supervision, so the community band is a nice change."

Beckmann has been a member of the band since 1994 and says he doesn't miss the small groups he used to play with. He also likes the opportunities the community band offers his fellow musicians.

"This band allows the people who played wind and brass in high school and college a place to continue," he says. "Unless you have a band like Craig's, there are limited places for those people to play."

Like any other band, the community band lives to perform for its community. The band gives three performances a year--one each in March, May and December. The May concert, which is held in Wildwood Park, is a Saratoga tradition, and families come out in force with picnics for an "old-fashioned day in the park."

"I think it's something the community loves," Northrup says. "There's a contingent of people at every concert who wouldn't miss it for the world."

The Saratoga Community Band will perform its spring concert on March 19 at 7:30 p.m. at Saratoga High School's McAfee Theatre. The concert is free. For more information, visit Saratogaband.org.