Beverly Sullivan couldn’t hide her pleasure about playing saxophone with the New Horizons Band Tuesday night, May 5. After the concert, performed for her fellow Terraces residents, the 81-year-old held up her instrument. “It’s a tenor sax,” she said. One could almost picture her as a teenager playing in her high school band. (PHOTO AT RIGHT: Beverly Sullivan, center, plays her saxophone in the New Horizons Band at The Terraces at MapleCreek)
“Starting in my senior year when I was 17, just after the end of the war in 1946, I played sax in a girls’ combo,” Beverly said. “We also had accordion and drums. We added extra girls for larger venues. We played together for six years until I got married. I didn’t touch my saxophone for 44 years, until 14 years ago. Now I play in five groups, including this one and the New Horizons jazz combo called the Ransom Street Big Band. That one meets tomorrow.”
Tom Curran, marketing coordinator at The Terraces at MapleCreek, was also at the concert performed in the dining room. “My dad plays with the New Horizons Band,” he said. “He plays the clarinet, and practices a lot every day.”
The 45-piece band is made up of older adults, age 50 and older, who are taking up a musical instrument for the first time or coming back to it after many years. “Tonight was my first concert,” said one member afterward in the parking lot. “I hadn’t touched my flute in 40 years, and now here I am playing again. It was a lot of work, but it was so much fun!”
“Our motto is ‘Music for Life,’” said conductor Dr. Nancy Summers-Meeusen. She encourages a love of playing music in young and old. In addition to conducting the New Horizons ensembles, she teaches oboe and serves as principal oboist with the West Shore Symphony Orchestra in Holland, Michigan.
Everyone was enthralled by the hard work of these older musicians and their rousing concert band music, including Terraces resident Roy Nixon, who turns 86 this month. Roy’s son Bob is a professional musician with the Grand Rapids Jazz Orchestra, which played in this same space for the residents and guests in January. Roy was instrumental in getting them to come to MapleCreek.
Tom leaned over toward the end of the concert and said, “Roy is really enjoying this. He told me he wants to join.”
Subscribe