KU band members spend summer on the march

Two months, 44 shows in 14 states, countless hours on buses and a different high school gymnasium to call home every night. That’s what four Kansas University band musicians have bargained for this summer as rookie members of the Lexington, Ky.-based Southwind Drum Corps.

Members of the corps, from left, are snare drummer and Lawrence native Jose Espinosa; Australian Vanessa Veitch on cymbals; assistant conductor Kim Blumenthal, Tulsa Okla.; and Tristan Moody, a Free State High School graduate.

After a spring marked by long trips to Kentucky for rehearsal camps, the quartet will return there for an intensive two-week rehearsal period before heading out on tour. The tour begins June 15 in Toledo, Ohio, and ends Aug. 10 in Madison, Wis., at the Drum Corps International finals. For more on this story, visit arts.ljworld.com today.

Also, Andrew Monshizadeh, who just completed his junior year at Lawrence High School, is a member of the Pioneer Drum and Bugle Corp this summer. The corp is based in Milwaukee, Wis., and will perform in the Mission Drum and Bugle Show July 15 at the stadium at Haskell Indian Nations University.

Deadline nears for listing in KU Edition arts calendar

It’s time to start getting together your event listing for the arts and entertainment section of the 2002 KU Edition.

We want to know about your dance, theater, music and other performing arts programs and about museum and gallery exhibitions. We want to know about community fairs, parades and any special event you might be planning in Lawrence or surrounding communities.

You can send your listings to Jan Biles, arts-features editor, Lawrence Journal-World, 645 N.H., Lawrence, 66044, or e-mail them to her at jbiles@ljworld.com.

Deadline for calendar submissions is Monday. The KU Edition will be published in mid-August.

Billy Spears Band kicks off Brown Bag concert series

The annual Brown Bag concert series will begin Thursday in front of U.S. Bank, Ninth and Massachusetts streets.

The concerts will be from noon to 1 p.m. Thursdays through early August. If it rains, the concerts will be moved to Watkins Community Museum of History, 1047 Mass.

The lineup includes Billy Spears Band, Thursday; Lonesome Hobos, June 13; Key West Jazz Quartet, June 20; Paul Gray Gaslight Gang, June 27; Borderline Country, July 11; Lonnie Ray’s Blues Band, July 18; Debbie and the Mystics, July 25; and Tommy Johnson Experiment, Aug. 1.

The concerts are free.