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Golden Gate Park Band’s 2023 Free Sunday Park Concerts (Apr. 30 – Oct. 1)

The 30-piece symphony has been playing free concerts in Golden Gate Park since 1882
By - posted 3/23/2023 No Comment

The Golden Gate Park Band, presents its 141st season in Golden Gate Park’s music concourse. That’s right, this 30-piece symphony has been playing free concerts in Golden Gate Park since 1882.

For 2023, there are 25 free weekly concerts that take place most Sundays at 1 pm and usually end between 2:30 and 2:45 pm. The concerts are free and open to the public.

All concerts take place between the de Young and the California Academy of Sciences and feature music of specific nationalities or cultures, including costumed guest performances from dancers, singers, and speakers, who will enlighten and entertain.

Brought to you by the Friends of the Golden Gate Park Band.

Golden Gate Park Band | 2023 Season
April 30 – October 1, 2023
Most Sundays at 1 pm (plus 4th of July and Labor Day)
Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF
FREE

2023 Concert Schedule

Subject to change – check website for updates.

  • April 30 – Opening Day / Baseball – includes Casey at the Bat with a narrator, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, selections from Damn Yankees, and America, the Beautiful
  • May 7 – Polish Culture Day – includes Schwanda the Bagpiper: Polka and Fugue and Three Klesmer Miniature
  • May 14 – Mother’s Day – includes the music of George Gershwin, a collection of Broadway showstoppers, Verdi’s La Forza del Destino, and Chaminade’s Concertino for Flute.
  • May 21 – Adventure Music – includes the William Tell overture, Bernstein’s Overture to Candide, themes from The Black Panther movie, and John William’s march from Raiders of the Lost Ark
  • May 28 – Armenian Culture Day – includes Alfred Reed’s Armenian Dances and Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance
  • June 4 – Outer Space – includes Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra (the opening to 2001: A Space Odyssey), John Williams’s Star Wars Saga, Star Trek themes, and movements from Holst’s The Planets

Golden Gate Park Band Festival 2023

June 10 & 11,  2023 

  • June 10 – 15th Annual Golden Gate Park Band Festival (Saturday – Day 1) – Although the Golden Gate Park Band doesn’t perform today, there are free big band concerts all day from 11am to 5pm
  • June 11 – 15th Annual Golden Gate Park Band Festival (Sunday – Day 2) – Golden Gate Park Band performs from 1-3pm including Gershwin’s Cuban Overture, Hindemith’s March from Symphonic Metamorphosis, and De Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance. Other Big bands play from 11am to 5pm.
Time 6/10/2023 – Saturday
11:00 AM Rancho Cordova River City Concert Band
12:00 PM New Horizons Band of Sonoma County
1:00 PM Healdsburg Community Band
2:00 PM Amador County Concert Band
3:00 PM Chico Community Band
4:00 PM Yolo Community College Band

 

Time 6/11/2023 – Sunday
11:00 AM Bay Area Friendship Band
12:00 PM Fort Point Garrison Brass Band
1:00 PM Golden Gate Park Band
2:00 PM Golden Gate Park Band
3:00 PM Terrible Adult Chamber Orchestra
4:00 PM San Francisco Brass Band

 

  • June 18 – Juneteenth – includes music of contemporary and historical black composers such as Kevin Day, Katahj Copley, Omar Thomas, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and William Grant Still
  • June 25 – LGBTQ+ Pride Day – includes music by Randall Standridge, Omar Thomas, and a special guest conductor
  • July 2 – American as Apple Pie – includes music from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, the music of Disneyland, and Sousa’s Stars and Stripe Forever march
  • July 4 (Tuesday) – Independence Day – includes Shenandoah, American Overture, Copeland’s Hoe-Down from Rodeo (known popularly as “the beef song”), Salute to American Jazz, and an Armed Forces medley
  • July 9 – Songs and Dances – includes Bernstein’s Dances from West Side Story, cartoon music, and a Frank Sinatra Medley
  • July 16 – Scottish Culture Day – includes Loch Lomond, Bond… James Bond, and Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave)
  • July 23 – Musical Treasures in the Band World – includes Variations on America, Holst’s Second Suite in F, Bennett’s Suite of Old American Dances, and selections from Lincolnshire Posy
  • July 30 – A Day of Disney – includes Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (as featured inDisney’s Fantasia) and music from Disney favorites including Moana and Frozen
  • August 6 – Something Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue – Includes Wedding Dance, Pineapple Poll, The Italian in Algiers, and Leroy Anderson’s Syncopated Clock
  • August 13 – Recognizing First Responders – includes Berceuse and Finale fromStravinsky’s The Firebird
  • August 20 – Hungarian Culture Day – includes Brahms Academic Festival Overture, selections from Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8, and Pusztz’s Four Gypsy Dances
  • August 27 – Ukrainian Culture Day – includes Bernstein’s Slava, Almighty God, and Four Ukrainian Songs

  • September 3 – Big Band Day – includes Big band jazz classics from the swing era and beyond
  • September 4 (Monday) – Labor Day – includes Gershwins’s Strike Up the Band, Copland’s Variations on a Shaker Melody, and Gould’s American Salute
  • September 10 – Mexican Culture Day – includes Zacatecas, Symphonic Dance No. 3, La Bamba de Vera Cruz, and Moncao’s Huapango
  • September 17 – Irish Culture Day – includes Irish Washerwoman, Shepherd’s Hey, The Girl I Left Behind, and a Salute to Spike Jones, presented in partnership with the United Irish Cultural Center of San Francisco
  • September 24 – Spanish Culture Day – includes Españi Cañi, El Aranjuez Con Tu Amor, and selections from Man of La Mancha
  • October 1 – Spooky October – includes Night on Bald Mountain (as featured in Disney’s Fantasia), In the Hall of the Mountain King from the Peer Gynt Suite, and Godzilla Eats Las Vegas


New Artistic Leadership for 2023

The Band’s 2023 Season also marks the first season with Craig McKenzie at the helm as music director and principal conductor, as well as the Band’s first associate music director, German Gonzalez. McKenzie is the band’s 10th music director in its 141-year history. Joining the Band as its first associate music director, German Gonzalez comes to the Band with over forty years of experience as a conductor and music educator.