The 15th Annual Liberty Band Festival arrives in Lycoming County on the weekend of Oct. 16-18 — with a free concert slated for 1:30 p.m. that Sunday at Montoursville Area High School.
Hosted by Williamsport’s world-famous Repasz Band, Liberty brings in musicians from around the country to rehearse on Friday and Saturday — with a band banquet Saturday evening and free public performance the following day.
Conducted for many years by Col. Arnald Gabriel, the event is this year under the baton of Jari Villanueva, a retired USAF musician and arranger who has participated in more than 5,000 ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery. According to Liberty’s program notes, Villanueva is considered America’s “foremost expert on military bugle calls” — while also arranging a wide array of songs for concert bands and other ensembles, published under his Baltimore-based firm JV Music.
This year, Villanueva leads nearly 120 musicians in a program featuring entirely American music — in keeping with the nation’s ongoing 250th anniversary celebration. Numerous participants hail from Central PA, with others representing no less than 14 states — including Georgia, Maine, Illinois, Kansas and Alabama.
The 2026 program includes such composers as Michel Legrand, Morton Gould, Robert W. Smith, Charles Ives, Elmer Bernstein, Karl King and George Gershwin.
It opens with “American Salute,” a World War II-era tribute that Gould wrote in less than eight hours for a live radio broadcast. Smith’s “American Flourish” includes “Yankee Doodle,” “Shenandoah” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” while Randall Standridge’s concluding “Ascension” interpolates “Be Thou My Vision” and “Nearer My God to Thee.”
The Gershwin piece is “Overture to Girl Crazy,” transcribed by Villanueva from original 1930 orchestrations for the hit Broadway show (later revived as “Crazy for You”). The Ives entry rearranges “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” while the veteran film composer Bernstein is represented by the march from 1963’s classic POW movie “The Great Escape.”
Nathan Hervey’s more recent “Everyday Heroes” honors military, police, fire and EMT workers — “a huge ‘THANK YOU!’”, writes the composer, “to our veterans and first responders.” Meanwhile, Bill Holcombe’s rousing “Cowboy Fantasy,” after opening in a brassy, Western-movie style, serves — in the words of the Liberty program notes — “as a whimsical, nostalgic tribute to the enduring spirit of the Wild West.”
Legrand’s Oscar-nominated “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” — penned for the 1969 movie “The Happy Ending — features an alto saxophone solo by Williamsport physician Mona Chang. And as always, the festival program includes a song with “liberty” in its title; this year’s selection is “Miss Liberty March,” composed in 1955 by march-maestro Karl King.
The festival is coordinated by Repasz business manager and long-time member Judith Shellenberger, with help from various members of that ensemble.
Founded in 1831 and now nearing its 200th anniversary, Repasz presents its own annual holiday concert this year on Dec. 8 at 7:30 p.m. at Williamsport’s Community Arts Center.
Like the Liberty concert, that performance is free and open to the public.
More information is available at repaszband.org.
