The sounds of music

strike up the Flathead Valley Community Band, whose members say their love for the melodies is all that matters

You could watch the music play itself across John Hamel's face.

His eyes, his mouth, the lines on his cheeks - all squeezed and rippled and undulated to the Celtic tunes that he and his bandmates played.

His right foot tapped to the beat. Then his left foot. Then both feet.

Who knew that you could groove on the bass clarinet? Especially to Irish music?

"I can't help it," Hamel, 83, said. "The music moves me."

Hamel is a reed man - clarinets and saxes - who volunteered to play bass clarinet in a Florida community band when no one else wanted to play the somewhat obscure instrument. "I like its range. It has an awful lot of good parts," he said.

Hamel and the rest of the Flathead Valley Community Band will perform several Celtic pieces at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Flathead High School auditorium.

The selections range from the haunting bagpipes-oriented "Amazing Grace" to "Riverdance" with its syncopated rhythms, runaway melodies, flashy drumming and dancing.

"There seems to be a wealth of concert band music that is based on English, Irish or Scottish folk music. … The melodies usually are very expressive and wistful with underlying pulses and rhythms. There's a haunting quality that comes out in that type of music - very soulful," said band director Hank Handford.

If you see the band perform, look to the right at the trombone section, where the band's senior-most and junior-most members sit next to each other - Don Lawrence, 76, who began as a kid in an older 1940s incarnation of the band, and Rebekah Hahn, 19, a community band member for one month.

The first Flathead Valley Community Band began and folded during the early 1940s as a organization financially supported by the city of Kalispell.

It was revived in 1970 as a Flathead Valley Community College function bolstered by high school and other area musicians. Lawrence, instructor of the Columbia Falls High School band, was the community band's first director.

Flathead Valley Community College withdrew its financial support in 1973. But about 20 band members wanted to keep the group going - and they did by forming their own organization. Lawrence stayed as director until he stepped down in 1995 to play trombone more.

During those years, the band's membership fluctuated and turned over - sometimes creating a glut of some instruments, and sometimes creating a shortage of those same instruments. Lawrence recruited students and former students to add balance to the band.

John Laing took over as director in 1995, stepping down in 2004 when Handford, a former Lawrence student and current Flathead Junior High band instructor, became director.

The band's busiest season is the summer, and it varies its repertoire from concert to concert.

The group accepts any musicians wanting to play in it.

"We're willing to open our doors to anyone who has the time and has what it takes," Handford said.

For example, there's Hahn, a former Flathead High band member, who missed playing and the camaraderie. So a month ago, she joined the community band, where most members are old enough to be her parents or grandparents.

"You have this common thing to share. Age doesn't make a difference," she said.

Lawrence said: "We like to play. It's a simple as that."