Conductor bids adieu

Conductor bids adieu
WARREN -- Conductor Robert E. Fleming will take his final bow with W.D. Packard Concert Band this weekend. Fleming, who is retiring, has been with the band for 45 years, 21 of those as conductor. He will lead musicians in a "Marching & amp; Swinging with Packard" concert at 7 p.m. Sunday at the south lawn band shell at Packard Music Hall, 1703 Mahoning Ave. N.W. Admission is free.
The band will play arrangements of music by Hoagy Carmichael and Duke Ellington. "The Man With the Horn," an arrangement by Sammy Nestico, will include trumpeter Paul McCarty as soloist, and the entire trumpet section will be featured in "Bugler's Holiday." Fleming will receive honors from Warren Mayor Michael O'Brien, John Bentz of Packard Park Board of Trustees and the band's executive director, Adone Calderone.
Fleming also will conduct the Big Band Sound of Packard, a 20-piece group with vocalist Ellen Wakeford Banks, at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, also at the band shell. That concert is in conjunction with the annual Packard Museum Car Show.
Local bands release CDs
Two area bands, the Youngstown-based Galya and December Son, are having album release parties this weekend.
Galya will have a free party Friday at the Lazy Bean Coffee House in Columbiana. The all-ages concert will begin at 8 p.m. The band, whose members Jeremiah Wagner, Justin Jolley, Steve Fleckenstein and Nicholas Rowe have been together since 2001, recorded the CD "Strange Idea" this spring.
December Son has been playing in the Youngstown, Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas for about four years. The party for the band's initial CD, entitled "The Better Happier You," is Saturday at The Cellar in Struthers. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the all-ages show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $5 in advance and $7 at the door.
Musical opens tonight
"Broadway," a musical comedy set in the 1920s, is being performed through Saturday by the Greenville Area Community Theater at Thiel College's Bly Hall, Greenville, Pa. "Broadway" features gun-toting gangsters, starry-eyed chorus girls and tunes from the Broadway music of the period, including "Button Up Your Overcoat," "The Man I Love," "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Charleston."
Performances are at 8 p.m. tonight, Friday and Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets, $12 for adults and $8 for children, are available at the door.