Band Director

An unexpected touch of drama put organizers of the All-County Band festival, set for tomorrow at Westminster High School, on edge.Dutch composer-conductor Johan di Meij, who was to have led the senior band in a program of his works, including one commissioned for the event, sent word early this week that he wouldn't be able to attend because his father was gravely ill.However, an American specialist in the music of the 44-year-old di Meij (pronounced di...

The Meade Senior High School concert and jazz bands, orchestra and chorus will present a free Christmas concert at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Glen Burnie United Methodist Church.The church is at Second Avenue and Crain Highway.Jeff Thompson, the band director, and Joyce Nellen, the chorus director, will conduct.Information: 410-761-4381.Pub Date: 12/18/97

GEORGE SMITH'S long-term goal as new band director at South Carroll High School is to lift the band program to a higher level.Smith is confident that by tapping the full potential of each band student, making major changes in the design and difficulty of the music performed, increasing the complexity of the choreography and even changing the way the students march, the band program will move ahead of where it's been.Smith, a graduate of the University of Maryland and the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, joined the South Carroll staff in June from Northern High School in Calvert County where he was band director for more than seven years.

The spotlight hits a dark-haired woman holding a microphone. Her makeup is dramatic, her hair a tussle of big curls with large earrings swaying beneath them. She wears tight black pants and a black blouse with sheer neck and sleeves."They'd probably fire me if I came to school dressed like this," said Rosemarie Schwer, a Bates Middle School teacher.But it's Saturday night in the back of Mike's Crab House in Riva, and Mrs. Schwer is transformed from an enrichment teacher at the Annapolis school to the singer in Midnight Hour, a nine-piece rock band that plays an eclectic mix of R&B, Motown and pop music from the '60s on.Mrs.

WHEN SHE MISSED one of the first rehearsals for the Howard County Gifted and Talented Middle School Band, Molly Reginnitter's friends knew she was doing something important.Her parents, Mary Jo and John Reginnitter of Woodbine, accompanied the Glenwood Middle School eighth-grader to Albuquerque, N.M., to the American Sheep Industry Association Convention.Molly, 14, won the trip, sponsored by the Maryland Sheep Breeders Association, by winning the Maryland Make-It-Yourself With Wool contest.

Glenelg High School has won another state championship.The Glenelg High School Jazz Band was one of 21 bands competing in the Maryland State Jazz Festival last Friday. The 12-hour marathon began at 7: 30 a.m.When it was over, Glenelg High School's Jazz Band won first place in the state. Saxophonist Chris Seymour won outstanding soloist of the festival, and pianist Matt Sandifer was named the outstanding rhythm soloist.At a banquet Thursday night, Glenelg's band director Barry Enzman was feted as one of Howard County's outstanding educators.

A torrential downpour Tuesday night could not keep the friends and admirers of the late Morris Long from a concert honoring his legacy.About 400 Severna Park Middle School students and their teachers dedicated a conductor's stand and chair to the memory of Long, the school's former band director who died of bone cancer in January. And members of one of the six groups on the program performed one of Long's favorite works. "He would've been pleased, and I know in my heart he was," said his wife, Beatrice Long, who was seated in the front row as the guest of honor.

For 22 years, Morris Long and the Severna Park Middle School concert band packed the house for Christmas and spring concerts.But a stroke last February and a diagnosis of bone cancer a week later forced the 50-year-old band director to retire.Now, current and former students, parents, and colleagues are saying "thank you" with hundreds of cards and bouquets to a man who has only days to live, according to his doctors."He was one of my favorite teachers," said Larry Serio, 29, a percussionist for Mr. Long 15 years ago. "He took the time to make sure you understood what he was teaching."

There are fathers we never knew, but sometimes there are fathers we never notice.I've seen a picture of my father as a toddler playing in the streets of Philadelphia. It was taken by a peddler who, like the ice cream trucks today, roamed from neighborhood to neighborhood snapping photos and selling them to harried mothers.I can't relate to anything in the picture: to my grandmother not owning a camera, nor to the curly-haired gamin smiling shyly between his sisters.Fast forward 15 years and there he is in another photograph, all of 19, scrawny, a rifleman in a barren field in Belgium.

Back to school means different things to different people. For parents, it signals a return to the routines of packing lunches, catching buses, supervising homework and car pooling to this or that practice.Teachers are back to planning lessons, grading papers and teaching new students. Students are getting acquainted with new teachers, making new friends and settling into the routine.Student athletes have made the team and have been working hard at practice now for a month or more. Cheerleaders are preparing new pyramids and crowd-pleasers.

Band director pleads guilty in sex abuse case A Howard County high school band director accused of sexually abusing a female student over two years pleaded guilty Thursday, prosecutors said. Robert Douglas Johnston, 61, who taught at Mount Hebron High School in Ellicott City for 35 years, could have been sentenced to a maximum of 25 years in prison in a case that included sexual abuse of a minor. Under his plea agreement, he could face a maximum of 18 months at his sentencing Aug. 13, said Wayne Kirwan, a county state's attorney's spokesman.

The longtime band director at a Howard County high school has been accused of sexually abusing a female student over the past two years, police said yesterday. Robert Douglas Johnston, 61, who has taught at Mount Hebron High School for more than 30 years, was charged yesterday with sexual abuse of a minor, third- and fourth-degree sex offenses, and obscene telephone misuse, according to Howard County police. Johnston surrendered to police Monday night and was arrested; he was being held yesterday on a $350,000 bond, police said.

M. Joseph Fischer, the director of bands at River Hill High School, has been recognized by School Band and Orchestra, a national publication, for its 10th annual, "50 Directors Who Make a Difference." Fischer, who has been at the school since 2003, was a natural choice for the distinction, Principal William Ryan said. "He's an incredible teacher who goes above and beyond what he's supposed to do," Ryan said. "I put him at the top of the 50 band instructors who make a difference." Fischer, 34, was surprised by the honor.

Band director Mike Blackman challenged his players to "sweat." Not in the literal sense, despite the fact that nearly 85 musicians playing for the Columbia Concert Band are crowded in the band room at River Hill High School. He wanted his band members to focus on the music and give it their all. A nonprofit community band since 1983, it practices yearlong for two hours each Monday night. At this week's practice, members let out a few laughs before quickly getting down to business and responding to Blackman's call for sweat.

TROPHIES rest on the window sills. Framed awards and yellowing photos fill the walls. Polished instruments and music stands await players in a rehearsal hall decorated with an oversized emblem of the Westminster Municipal Band. After 112 years of roaming from one rehearsal area to another, the band finally has made a home for itself in a one-story former plumbing warehouse on John Street in the city that it has represented musically for more than a century. "This is all ours," said Sandy Miller, band director, her arms sweeping the area.

She is smiling too much, a Broadway smile. But it's just rehearsal - it's not the real crucifixion. For now, 16-year-old Jodi Wenger can kid around as two high school classmates hoist her off her feet and onto a 2-by-4 crucifix stand-in. What's important at this stage is not to be spun into the bass drums or get clipped by the Flag Guard. She'll lose the smile for the show, but you don't want to lose a tooth. It's very serious business representing Christ from that movie of last year called The Passion of the Christ.

Thirteen Cockeysville Middle School pupils were injured yesterday morning when two school buses collided on the way to a state band festival in Frederick. All of the injured children, including a 13-year-old girl airlifted to Johns Hopkins Hospital with neck and jaw pain, were released yesterday afternoon. The school's band -- despite missing half its clarinet section, three horn players and a saxophonist -- went on to the state contest, where the group earned the highest rating possible.

Edward Gerald Kerman, a longtime Howard County music educator and advocate of grass-roots community bands, died Monday of a brain tumor at his Ellicott City home. He was 58. Born and raised in Washington, he graduated in 1963 from Northwood High School in Silver Spring. He earned a bachelor's degree in music in 1968 from what is now Frostburg State University and a master's in music in the mid-1970s from Catholic University in Washington. After graduating from Frostburg, Mr. Kerman became the choral director and general music teacher at a school in St. Mary's County and then assistant band director at a school in Marion, N.C. He returned to Maryland in the early 1970s as band director at Glen Burnie High School in Anne Arundel County, and his students performed for then-first lady Patricia Nixon at the dedication of a new park in the community.

Magic review today is benefit show for Cub Scout pack The Friends of Cub Scout Pack 381 will hold a magic show at 7 p.m. today at Westminster High School Auditorium. The Magic Capers Review will perform magic and illusion. The group also will honor Ray Corbin, known as Raymonde, for his work in magic. Tickets are $5, with proceeds going to Cub pack activities. The school is at 1225 Washington Road. Information: 410-876-0527. Guests to conduct Sousa concert Thursday The Carroll Concert Band under the direction of Glenn Patterson will present its eighth annual Sousa Style Concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Winters Mill High School auditorium.

Owen Brown Middle School celebrated Black History Month on Feb. 11 with a recitation of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, accompanied by the school's Puma Band, gospel singer Natalie Creditt and sixth-grade teacher Steve Schaefer. "It just supported the words so dramatically," said band director Belinda King, who organized the production. "It was phenomenal. I'm still getting people stopping me in the hallways." The 45-minute morning assembly began with a PowerPoint presentation about the civil rights movement, King said.