This photo of the Honeoye Falls Community Concert Band is from the band’s website. Photo provided by the band.
By Tom Exter
Renowned composer, arranger, and professor of Jazz (Eastman School of Music and Lawrence University) Fred Sturm (b. 1951 – d. 2014) graced our community which he called home while raising his family and teaching at Eastman from 1991 to 2002.
Fred naturally gravitated to local musicians and teachers, including Lindsey and Mark Borden, and members of the Honeoye Falls Community Concert Band (HFCCB). Fred’s wife, Susan Sturm, played tympani drums in the HFCCB for a few years. And their children, Maddy and Ike, both played in the band at one time or another. A musical family, indeed!
Around the time of the band’s 10th anniversary in 1998, the Bordens and others, with minimal arm twisting, convinced Fred to compose a concert band piece to commemorate the anniversary. Fred engaged in extensive research on the area, assisted by local historians Diane Ham and Anne Bullock. Heritage Suite was composed and first performed by the band that year. The music is officially published, so any concert band can celebrate the suite’s themes that echo in many communities.
Through five movements, Heritage Suite commemorates the people and history of Honeoye Falls and the broader Mendon community. Dance of the Forebears resonates with Iroquois dance melodies reminiscent of Totiakton, the Seneca village once located on these lands. The Mill on the Creek recalls the hope and innocence of the late 18th century when Zebulon Norton built the first mill on Honeoye Creek. From Steeples, Sunday Bells reproduces the neighborly cacophony of Honeoye Fall’s several early 19th-century churches. Letters from the Front is a musical reading of the words of Omar Richardson, a local Civil War soldier who died serving his country in 1863. The suite ends with The Black Diamond Express, sounding like the train that roared through this area between 1895 and 1959.
This year the Honeoye Falls Community Concert Band begins its 35th season and will reprise Heritage Suite as part of its traditional Autumn Concert on Saturday, October 22, at 7:00 PM in the HFL District Auditorium, 619 Quaker Meeting House Road, Honeoye Falls. The band invites all to this Autumn Concert to enjoy the season and the music. We know Fred will have the best seat in the house.
