Sousa show, with a modern twist, charms youthful audience

Put the cliches up on the shelf, unless you're interested in the subtle nuances of "marching orders."

A concert billed as "Sousa in the 21st Century" was just that. Sure, there were a half-dozen briskly executed works by the world's acknowledged March King. But Thursday evening at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts was more about reinventing John Philip Sousa's own orders to himself on how a show should be programmed: with contemporary compositions replacing what most likely would have been operetta snippets and other pieces from the early 20th century.

Deft co-hosts Christian Kohlberg and Lark McCarthy explained to an audience of mostly middle school students (the concert was a fundraiser for the Clark County School District's arts education programs) how Sousa would start a show back in the day with an uptempo number followed by an "encore-ette" of a short bouncy march.

Following suit, the band -- mainly made up of music teachers plus a smattering of high school students and a few from UNLV, as well as professional musicians -- opened with conductor Rick McEnaney's robust razzle-dazzle of Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" overture.

Then it was the Sousa march "The Directorate" with a ballroom-gowned young woman -- the equivalent of the boxing world's ring girl? -- carrying a posterboard across the stage with the march title in bold old-fashioned letters before placing it on an easel stage left.

Except someone failed to tell her the next piece (Gustav Holst's Second Suite in F for Military Band) had four movements, and that she should have waited a while before sauntering in front of the band with a sign proclaiming Sousa's bold "Liberty Bell" march when the musicians were clearly in the midst of the suite's slower second movement.

McEnaney handled the miscue with aplomb, however, by smiling to the audience at the suite's conclusion, stepping off the podium and quickly placing the mistimed sign backstage to knowing chuckles from astute concertgoers.

The printed program listed only the longer pieces with nary a march in sight, which might have prompted one to wonder where the Sousa was. So it was refreshing to note the addition of the minute-or-more marches as insertions between each -- with pleasantly presented CliffsNotes-style background on them from the hosts. Did you know the "Washington Post" march was commissioned by the so-named newspaper in 1889 as part of a program to honor winners of an essay contest?

(Kohlberg even gave a shout-out to audience member -- and R-J columnist -- John L. Smith, suggesting he nudge the paper's bosses toward considering something similar.)

Trombonist Dick McGee, a veteran of Las Vegas' classical music scene and currently chairman of the College of Southern Nevada's fine arts department, took to the soloist's microphone to front his own smooth arrangement of Gershwin tunes before the band hit a home run on selections from "Star Wars."

McCarthy tweaked the funny bones of the older folks in the sellout crowd as she introduced the Boston Pop's standard, Leroy Anderson's "The Typewriter," by explaining to the kids that the quizzical device brought to the stage atop a card table was a "20th century word processor," sans computer screen. The typewriter was "played" by a male percussionist who had slipped into a denim sack dress and gaudy blond wig backstage, with a similarly dressed assistant swiping a metal guiro to accentuate the typewriter carriage returns. The clownlike performance played well to one and all, followed by a solid finish to the concert: Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."

The co-hosts noted nothing like this had been done before in our town. Let's hope it's not the last. It was a great way to get young people and their families into The Smith Center's Reynolds Hall while generating revenue for a cash-strapped and desperately needed part of a well-rounded education.