Randy Coleman directing the concert band, early 1970s.
Our Story
The Orange County Concert Band started in 1971 as a summer concert series organized by a band student, Denis Finnegan, of Villa Park High School and the schoolβs band director, Randy Coleman. The concert band combined the talents of both high school/college students and adult musicians to perform in public parks throughout Orange County.
When the summer series ended, an adult band member named Dr. Gary Lester approached Coleman about continuing to practice and perform year-round. Lester presented a funding proposal to the Orange City Council, which was approved for many years.
The band grew quickly as many musicians wanted to continue playing. After the city funding ended, the band became a community college class offered by Rancho Santiago Community College, with adults enrolled and paying a fee to help fund the band.
When the college stopped offering the course, the band had to rely on public and private donations. To accept these, they created the Orange County Preservation Bands as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. After Coleman’s retirement in the early 2000s, the band was led by several band members with music education backgrounds. The current director is Suzanne Gindin, who has a Ph.D. in music directing. Both the Orange County Concert Band and the Orange County Jazz Band continue to perform public and private events around Orange County.
Conductor
Dr. Suzanne Gindin has served as the conductor of the Orange County Concert Band since August of 2017. She is a career music educator who also has a doctorate in music from Northwestern University where she studied wind, choral and orchestra conducting with Dr. Mallory Thompson, Dr. Stephen Alltop and Mr. Victor Yampolsky. Other mentors include Larry Rachleff, Jerry Junkin, Elizabeth Schwartz, Hemut Rilling, and Thomas Sommerville from the Oregon Bach Festival.
Suzanne has taught Kβ12 instrumental and vocal music throughout her 25 years of teaching. Her career also includes a post as the first female conductor of the semi-professional Manchester Symphony Orchestra in Indiana where she taught University Music Education for four years before relocating to Los Angeles. Inspired by the career of Gustavo Dudamel and his training with the Venezuelan El Sistema, Suzanne worked with the LA Philharmonic to open her own nucleo for orchestral music training in Boyle Heights, a severely under-served area of East Los Angeles where students had virtually no access to instrumental or vocal music. In five years, this program performed around Los Angeles including appearing in a Grammy Award-winning music video with White Sun, and performing with Rusty Anderson from Paul McCartney’s band in the opening of 8 Days A Week by Ron Howard.
She continues to teach secondary school music in vocal, instrumental, music theory, digital music and rock music in the Los Angeles area. Her husband and now middle school son(!) reside in Azusa where she can easily commute to Orange and continue making great music with the best community concert band in the land.
Don’t Miss a Beat
Jazz up your event with a swinging performance of the freshest jives for all the coolest cats.
To book the Orange County Concert Band or the Orange County Jazz Band, contact:
Wendy Wilson
(714) 975-1290
bookings@ocpbands.org
Mailing address:
OC Preservation Bands, Inc.
P.O. Box 2486
Orange, CA 92859