Join Us for Our 30th Season!
Meet our Conductor
Music Director & Conductor Danny Lewis
has been the Director of Bands at Hazelwood West High School since fall 2025. Previously, he was Director of Bands at McCluer High School and taught at McCluer High School in the Ferguson-Florissant School District for nine years and served as the District's Fine Arts Coordinator for three years. Prior to Ferguson-Florissant, he taught band for three years at Mark Twain Jr/Sr. High School in the Ralls Co RII School District in Center, Missouri. He received Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Truman State University. Danny has had the pleasure of playing with many local St. Louis musicians, and as an educator, has had the opportunity to collaborate with artists and administrators from Jazz St. Louis and the St. Louis Symphony. In his free time he likes to build guitars and ukuleles in his basement. He's excited for his fourth year as Director of the University City Summer Band!
Support U City Summer Band
Essential monetary donations to support the U City Summer Band come from businesses and friends like you! We want to continue and expand our efforts to play with and mentor St. Louis area high school musicians. In making a financial donation to the band, you are supporting these efforts and supporting our community. Your financial support also helps us bring in guest artists.
You can donate online with PayPal or Venmo or by check at the donations page.
The University City Summer Band is a production of the University City Music Company, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Donations may be tax deductible. Thank you for keeping the music going!
Concert Schedule
Opening Fanfare.....Daniel Lewis
Jubilance.....James Swearingen
*Second Suite for Military Band.....Gustov Holst
*Guest Conductor Ken Thompson, U City Summer Band Conductor 2000-2003
**Simple Gifts: 4 Shaker Songs....Frank Ticheli
**Guest Conductor Tomas Poshak, U City Summer Band Conductor 2003-2022
~~~~~INTERMISSION~~~~~
Encanto.....Robert W. Smith
***Alpine Eclipse.....Thomas Jöstlein
***Moon River.....Henry Mancini; Arr Christopher Bond, and re-orchestrated by Thomas Jöstlein
***Guest Soloist Thomas Jöstlein, French Horn
On The Mall.....Edwin Franko Goldman
Guest Conductor: Ken Thompson directs the Detroit Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble and Civic Philharmonic Orchestra and has worked with Civic Youth Ensembles for 18 seasons. He serves as professor in the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH. Thompson maintains an active schedule with engagements throughout the United States, Canada, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, and China. He has appeared as a lecturer or clinician with the International Society for Music Education, the National Conference of the College Band Directors National Association, the North Carolina, South Carolina, Iowa, West Virginia, Ohio, and Missouri Music Educators Association conferences, and many others. An advocate of new music, Thompson has commissioned nearly 100 new works for wind bands and orchestras, half of which are the work of underrepresented composers.
Guest Conductor: Thomas Poshak received his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the University of Michigan. He retired in 2001 after a 30-year career as a high school band director. Mr. Poshak taught in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in Ladue, MO, and was the Band Director and Music Coordinator for the Kirkwood School District from 1985 until 2001. Under his direction the Ladue Symphonic Band performed at the MMEA convention in 1982 and the Kirkwood Symphonic Band received Honor I ratings at MSHSAA Festivals for 12 consecutive years and Gold Ratings at music festivals in Atlanta, Chicago and Nashville. In 2001 he received the Music Educator of the Year award from the SLSMEA and in 2004 received the Hall of Fame Award. Mr. Poshak is the music director of the St. Louis Wind Symphony and serves as an adjudicator and clinician throughout Missouri. He directed the UCity Summer Band from 2003-2022.
Guest Soloist: Thomas Jöstlein, French Horn Associate Principal Horn with the St. Louis Symphony since 2010, enjoys an active and varied musical life. From 2007-09, Jöstlein was the New York Philharmonic's Assistant Principal Horn, playing all positions, including Associate Principal and Third Horn. Previously, he held positions with the Honolulu, Omaha, Richmond, and Kansas City symphony orchestras, and performed in summer festivals in Oregon, Ohio, Colorado, and North Carolina. He has served as Assistant Professor of Horn at the University of Illinois. An active soloist, Jöstlein won First Prize in the professional division of the American Horn Competition in 2003, and the Grand Prize at the Hugo Kauder Music Competition at Yale University in 2005. Thomas Jöstlein lives in University City with wife and fellow horn player Tricia and sons Klaus and Max.
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Latest News
Come Join us for Season 30!
The 60-member (give or take) U City Summer Band is... Light Classics, Marches, Patriotic Music, Show Tunes, Popular Music, Jazz, and Original Music for Band.
Concerts are held at our venue in Heman Park, 1028 Midland Blvd, University City, MO 63130 (park entrance is off Midland, opposite Shaftesbury).
All concerts start at 7PM, last about 60 minutes, and include a short intermission. Seating is on the lawn. Bring a lawn chair or blanket as available seating is limited. Bring your children! Bring a picnic! There is shade for the audience (beneath the trees). There is a nearby playground and restrooms.
For our last piece at each concert, we play "On the Mall." Children are invited to come up to the front and conduct the band and receive their very own U City Summer Band pencil!
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U City Summer Band Videos on YouTube!
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The U City Summer Band was featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
COMPLETE ARTICLE
July 5, 2023
“It’s unlike anything else, this atmosphere,” said Frank Chross of University City, lounging in his lawn chair with about 150 others for the first University City Summer Band concert of the season.
“There’s something about live music,” said Danny Lewis, a trumpeter who took over as director of the U. City Summer Band this year. “It’s a magical thing.”
“I’m of the mindset that I want everybody to play,” said U. City’s Lewis, who teaches band in the Ferguson-Florissant School District. “We’ll find a place for you.” Recruiting and retaining younger players can be a challenge. Most band members are closer to Social Security eligibility than to their college days.
The University City Summer Band designates its second concert of the season as Student Night, inviting high school band members from across the region to accompany it. Song selection helps to both engage performers and turn first-time audience members into regulars, said Lewis. “I want there to be music that you’ve never heard and some that you know,” he said. Military marches, Broadway scores and patriotic tunes are constants. But reimagined billboard hits and blockbuster movie soundtracks also get their due. “My 8-year-old will be singing along to ‘Hakuna Matata,’” said Lewis, who himself favors “Irish Tune from County Derry,” better known as “Danny Boy.”
U. City is just a few members shy of its full pre-pandemic roster of about 90. But at the end of every concert, its ranks swell. Lewis invites the kids in the audience to the podium to grab a pencil. A dozen new conductors are born as the band closes out the show with one final march.