Welcome to the home of the Solano Winds!
We are a community concert band in the city of Fairfield in Solano County, California.
Our mission is to provide the community with high quality music through our performances, and to make music accessible to others through our various community and school outreach programs.
We are celebrating our 15th year of great performances this year! We hope you will accompany us for what promises to be yet another outstanding season of quality entertainment!
Photo - Melissa Doherty © 2009
What are people saying about Solano Winds?
- "Friday night’s standing-room-only crowd at the Fairfield Center for the Creative Arts was treated to an evening of music, both familiar and little known, organized around the theme of “Space.” "
- "This concert brought a highly successful season to a triumphant close. I can’t wait to see -- or rather, to hear -- what they will do next season."
- "Flutist Cathy Pierce did the near impossible in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s familiar “The Flight of the Bumble-Bee,” combining blinding speed with such careful articulation that each note was clearly heard."
- "Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Sea Songs” opened the second half of the program. In the wrong hands this piece can be cloying, but it wasn’t in the wrong hands. The flutes, clarinets and saxophones were at their melodious best, while the almost astringent tone Doherty drew from the trumpets helped make listening to this piece an unalloyed pleasure."
- "Morton Gould’s “Cowboy Rhapsody,” which included such favorites as “Home on the Range” and “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” allowed Doherty to highlight several of many wonderful musicians who make up the Solano Winds. Most memorable is Cathy Pierce’s limpid flute, Dan Meehan’s expressive clarinet (again) and a lovely, singing tone from Heather Handa on trumpet."
- "This ensemble is unquestionably one of the best values for your dollar when it comes to musical performances in Solano County."
- " The Solano Winds represents community music-making at its finest. They welcome players of all skill levels. "
- " What they all have in common is a desire to share their love of music. Conductor Doherty elicits focused, disciplined playing which in no way inhibits the obvious pleasure felt by the musicians as they play."
Join us for any of our concerts this year, and we will give you a dynamic and energetic "pops" style concert that will leave you humming our music for days. Our selections span musical styles ranging from marches to classical, Broadway musicals to jazz.
The performance season for this year consists of three performances at the Fairfield Center for the Creative Arts, one at Vacaville Performing Art Theater and our encore concert at the Carmichael Community Band Festival.
Please visit our Concerts pages for more information on the programs and venues.