Des Plaines Music Man Retires

After 30 years as the founding conductor and music director of the Des Plaines Park District Community Concert Band, Lawrence J. Carle is preparing to pass the baton. “As a conductor, he knows so much about selecting just the right music, and how to get a band to perform at top levels,” said Shelli Sarg, Facilities Manager, and Park District liaison for the Concert Band over the past thirteen years. “His musical gifts to the Des Plaines community and to the Concert Band have been felt for years, and he will be fondly remembered for many years to come.”

Carle conducted the band in its first concert at a community festival in June of 1983, on the loading dock at Spiegler’s Department store in downtown Des Plaines. Carle’s final performance was the band’s annual holiday program, “A Christmas Festival,” on December 15 in the Prairie Lakes Theatre. “There comes a time for everything,” said Carle, “and now is the time.” Under Carle’s leadership, the Concert Band has performed hundreds of programs in the community. Carle brought classical music to many who would never have listened to Tchaikovsky or Vivaldi, and he brought contemporary show music to a generation that has never been to Broadway.

A graduate of Upper Iowa University in Fayette, Iowa, Carle has a Bachelor’s degree in Music Education for K-12 and Elementary Education for K-8. He plays the violin, viola, cello, bass, trumpet, French horn, trombone, tuba, piano, guitar, drums, timpani, bells, bass drum, and cymbals. It was his mother who started him on his musical career, with violin lessons in the third grade. He taught band and orchestra for 25 years in Des Plaines Community Consolidated District 62 at Iroquois Middle School, and at Plainfield, Orchard Place and South Elementary Schools. “Everyone needs an opportunity to play a musical instrument,” Carle said. He has trained scores of students and has a lasting legacy of musicians who got their start under his baton in a school as well as through his years as a private instructor. “It gives me great joy to see my former band and orchestra students today who still remark, ‘You had me in your program,’” Carle said.

In the fall of 1982, the Des Plaines Park District wanted to organize a Community Concert Band. Carle was recommended to the district as the right person to be the conductor. “In those early days, we didn’t have a music library. We were fortunate to borrow Maine West High School’s music, and instruments from the band program at Iroquois Middle School,” Carle said. Of all the classical pieces he has conducted Carle cites ‘Dance of the Tumblers’ by Rimsky-Korsakov; ‘Finale to the New World Symphony’ by Antonin Dvorak; and ‘Finale to Symphony No. 4’ by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as his three favorites. “I like John Philip Sousa’s march ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever,’ and the ‘Commando March,’ by Samuel Barber, as well. My favorite composer, however, it the great John Williams,” he said. “I had the opportunity to meet him after one of his concerts at Ravinia. I have probably seen each of the Star Wars movies ten times and I collect Star Wars memorabilia.”

A highlight of his time conducting the band was the performance that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s contrabassoonist, Susan L. Nigro, played. “She demonstrated the range of the ‘stovepipe’ and soloed with the band. Another memorable performance was when we played ‘Winds from the Prairie’ for the first time. Jared Spears, my mentor, and then, the Orchestra Director, Jazz Band Conductor, assistant conductor of the Concert Band and Music Theory teacher for Maine West High School, was commissioned to write ‘Winds’ in 1993. In December, 1995, he stepped up on our podium to conduct the Des Plaines Park District Community Concert Band, and we have included the composition in our program several times since.”

“I have been fortunate to have worked with extraordinary colleagues, both in the schools and in the band. I have had the privilege, above all, to associate with some incredible students whose talent it has been my good fortune to help uncover and nurture,” Carle said. “I have had an unbelievable ride and I will miss terribly my association with our band. The amount of musicality that our Des Plaines concert band has is quite uncommon in a community band,” Carle said. “They’re really fine players. They work very hard.”