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One of our trombonists, John Garner, assured me the rain was about to cease and so it did right after our first selection, "National Emblem March". Our loyal family members and friends remained with us through all the rain and now the crowd started to arrive. |
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We played two forty-five minute concerts to people eating lunch on the terrace and to those wandering the historic grounds of Ellis Island which opened in 1892. Literally millions of new Americans entered our Nation this way, including the ancestors of many of our musicians. Today, Ellis Island is a museum dedicated to the Immigrants. |
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We played a number of classic American marches, including those by Sousa, whose parents were immigrants to NYC long before Ellis Island was established as the "Gateway to America". Our son John Philip Huber performed "Carnival of Venice" as our soloist. |
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I believe we took the most pride in playing "Manhattan Beach" with the Manhattan skyline behind us, "New York, New York", "George M. Cohan's Patriotic Fantasy" (Cohan was a native of NYC and his statue is on Times Square), and ending with "The Stars and Stripes Forever" with that glorious Statue of Liberty for inspiration. More than one of us had wet eyes on that one! Once back to Battery Park we boarded the buses and paused at Ground Zero, the site of the worst terrorist attack in history. We saw the church, just across the street from the World Trade Center, which was unscathed by the enemy's act of barbarism. We gazed in total silence. |
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