Washtenaw Community Concert Band

Mission: To provide a welcoming environment where diverse musicians of varying backgrounds and abilities can develop, broaden, and express their musical abilities through rehearsal and performance.

The Ypsilanti Community Band (YCB) and Washtenaw Community College (WCC) entered into a formal partnership effective June 1, 2010, to create the performing group Washtenaw Community Concert Band (WCCB). The band consists of community players from in and around Washtenaw County.

There were 59 players for the first YCB concert in 1979. Recent membership of the WCCB has grown to 80 or more players ranging in age from teens to octagenarians. Some are or have been professional musicians or have music degrees; most are people from a wide variety of walks of life who played in high school and/or college and who enjoy making music with other adults.

The concert season features performances in October, December, February or March, May, and two or three summer concerts in June and July — all in Towsley Auditorium or the adjacent lobby in the Morris Lawrence Building at Washtenaw Community College. Past summers have included performances on Memorial Day at the Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run, patriotic concerts at Ypsilanti-area parks in July, and open-air performances in Milan and at the Ypsilanti Heritage Festival in August. The WCCB has also appeared at the Red Cedar Festival of Community Bands in Okemos, in Ypsilanti’s Depot Town, in downtown Ypsilanti, and at Selfridge Air Guard Base in Macomb County, among other venues of recent years.

The band is deeply committed to several strong traditions, one of which is no auditions for players and another of which is all concerts are free to the public.