The Buffalo Silver Band 1935

SINCLAIRVILLE — The Buffalo Silver Band, under the direction of Bill Cocca, will be performing at the J. Arthur France Auditorium at Cassadaga Valley High School on Tuesday, May 8. The concert is a joint effort with Cassadaga Valley High School Band Director Nicole Zenns, who has prepared her students to perform side-by-side with the Buffalo Silver Band for the concert’s finale.

Doors open at 6:45 p.m. for the concert, which is slated to begin at 7 p.m. Side-by-side selections with students and Buffalo Silver Band musicians will include Elgar’s Nimrod from the Enigma Variations, Jump Street Boogie by David Shaffer, and Lassus Trombone by Henry Fillmore, featuring an expanded trombone section made up of some area music teachers and trombone enthusiasts.

The Buffalo Silver Band has won many awards for their performances in Toronto and New York, and has made award-winning recordings as well. They were most recently selected to perform at the prestigious The Association of Concert Band’s 40th anniversary convention after a highly competitive selection process. There were a large number of applicants from seven states, and a blind evaluation process resulted in the selection of the BSB.

Bill Cocca, Buffalo Silver Band conductor since 2012, retired in 2010 after 36 years in public school music education — the final 25 years as high school band director at Springville-Griffith Institute where he also served as district music coordinator for 17 years. Prior to the move to Springville, he spent nine years as junior-senior high school band director at Greene Central School. Cocca earned a Bachelor’s degree in music education at the State University College at Fredonia and a Masters of Music Education from Ithaca College. He also holds an education administrative certification from Fredonia State College. An active member of the New York State School Music Association, Cocca is an All-State Certified Brass Adjudicator, has hosted both Area All-State and Major Organization Festivals and served as Stage Manager for the NYSSMA Winter Conference for 10 years.

Cassadaga Valley Band Director Nicole Zenns is in her third year at the helm of the High School Concert Band, Middle School Band, and sixth grade band. She is an active member of NYSSMA and recently became certified as an All-State adjudicator. A music educator since 1995, Zenns has taught at Cassadaga Valley and Silver Creek Central schools as well as adjunct assignments at SUNY Fredonia. She maintains an active performance life outside school as a professional flutist with the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, Clarence Summer Orchestra, and as a section flute substitute with orchestras in Buffalo and Erie, PA. as well as her newly formed woodwind quintet, “Quintessential.”

Local musicians in the Buffalo Silver Band include Silver Creek Band Director Kiersten Roetzer on trombone, and Chautauqua County natives Diana Bley on euphonium and Brianna Hoige on percussion. Some of the musicians (about 25%) are music educators or retired music educators. The remaining 75% are a broad cross section of non-music, professions, some retired: university faculty, university administrators, high school faculty, information technologists, artists, graphic artists, engineers, scientists, psychologists, and entrepreneurs. They have in common a love of music — enough love to keep them in musical shape by their practice regimen.

The story of the Buffalo Silver Band begins in 1909 when the First German Baptist Church on Spruce Street in Buffalo reached out to Hungarian immigrants and helped them establish a meeting place so they could worship as a group. Soon after the church was founded, a few musicians among the congregation offered their services, playing hymns and other works of a religious nature, and began adding instrumentalists willing to join the group. By 1915 the group had grown to 11-15 members — a large enough group to be called a band. They purchased a bass drum for the ensemble and designated it with the title, “First Hungarian Baptist Church Band.” The little church grew in both membership and diversity. In order to be more inclusive and reflect the diversity of the congregation, the church renamed itself the Austin Street Baptist Church in 1955. Accordingly, the band changed its name as well. The distinctive sound of the current Buffalo Silver Band is a result of a fairly standard instrumentation for British-style brass (silver) bands: 10 cornets, a flugelhorn, 3 tenor horns, 2 baritones, 2 euphoniums, 3 trombones, 4 basses, and 2-4 percussionists. Most brass bands today have instrumentation close to this assortment. Note that tenor horns are used rather than French horns, while cornets replace trumpets, and no reed instruments are part of a strictly British style brass band.