ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) - Elk Grove Community Concert Band gave a moving performance on Oct. 28 at Joseph Kerr Middle School, with a program based on various kinds of travel or movement.

With the theme “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” the band started the evening with a soaring number called “In Flight” by Samuel R. Hazo. Other pieces included “The Headless Horseman” by Timothy Broege, the “Pirates of the Caribbean” theme, and Johann Strauss II’s “Perpetuum Mobile,” a musical term meaning “perpetual motion.”

The band and attendees celebrated Halloween early with lots of fun costumes. Among the musicians were pirates, ballerinas and ghosts, while everyone from the Joker and Thor to a plague doctor and a peacock sat in the audience. Kids in costume got a chance to parade around the auditorium with live accompaniment.

In a multimedia flourish, the band played “The Great Locomotive Chase” by Robert W. Smith while the Buster Keaton silent film “The General” was projected above the stage. 

Both works are inspired by a true event during the Civil War, when a group of Union Army volunteers commandeered a locomotive and used it to  damage a railroad line vital to the Confederacy.

“You know, we only did that one rehearsal with the video, and then we practiced it this afternoon, and we got it,” conductor Christopher Tootle told the audience after the performance.

Tootle said the band’s performances draw people from across the Sacramento area, as well as people of all ages. He noted that the band members range from high schoolers to octogenarians.

The musicians volunteer their time at weekly rehearsals “for the sake of the music, for the love of playing,” Tootle said.

Galt resident Wendy Underwood, who played clarinet in a butterfly queen costume, spoke about why she participates.

“It’s my breath. It’s the thing that I can come on Monday nights and the music is just amazing. It’s amazing to be able to do this,” Underwood said. She noted that 10 of her grandchildren joined in the costume parade.

The band’s next performance is its Holiday Concert on Monday, Dec. 16. Tootle said it would feature “A Christmas Festival” by Leroy Anderson as well as “The Nightmare Before Christmas” by Danny Elfman.

To learn more about Elk Grove Community Band, follow it on Facebook or visit its website, elkgrovecommunityband.org.