EAA AirVenture Oshkosh has always celebrated the music of thunderous afterburners, cavitating propellers, and rivet guns on sheet metal. Tonight at 7 p.m., fly-in attendees can enjoy a more conventional melodic sound as the EAA AirVenture Concert Band makes its debut performance at Theater in the Woods.

The 60-member ensemble will play a selection of aviation-themed music including "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines," and music from the movie Air Force One and, in honor of Gen. Chuck Yeager, who is also on tonight’s program, The Right Stuff. Also on the program: the world premier of "The Experimental Aviator’s March," by Bob Diven.

The band was the brainchild of EAA member Elton Eisele, co-chairman of Departure Briefings, who is both a certificated flight instructor and the band director at Niles North High School in Skokie, Illinois.

"For many years I have wanted to try to get a band going," Eisele told AirVenture Today. "It would be the perfect way to combine my love of flying and love of music. I was noticing a lot of people around [the air show] who play instruments."

Last year, Eisele brought his idea to senior staffers at AirVenture, who encouraged him to put together a band. A notice was posted in the EAA e-newsletter, e-Hotline, and Eisele started hearing immediately from EAAers eager to join. At first he was nervous about forming a band with musicians whom he’d never heard play, but his attitude soon changed.

"I got a letter from someone who wrote, ‘I have a daughter in junior high school. Can she join?’ And I thought, ‘Why not?’ That was the e-mail that changed this whole thing around for me, that said, ‘This is going to be fun. Camp people playing for camp people.’"

Eisele sent all the band members sheet music several weeks ago so they could practice for the concert. The musicians come from across the country, Florida to Washington, and as far as France. Baritone saxophonist Ronald Fuller of Gresham, Wisconsin, like most of the musicians, found out about the band on the Internet.

"I was looking at the EAA AirVenture website about all the stuff that’s going on, and I happened to come across the article about the band, and I said, great!" Fuller said.

"My grandfather saw [the notice] and he thought it would be fun," remarked 12-year-old trombonist Scott Kulm of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, at the band’s first rehearsal Tuesday morning. Kulm, who’s attending his fourth AirVenture, hopes to eventually get his pilot certificate. His grandfather, Robert Patterson, sat a few rows ahead of Kulm in the clarinet section.

Sitting in the back, Bob Northrup from Rochester, New York, who’s here as an exhibitor with engine monitor manufacturer Xerion, was playing on percussion equipment lent to Eisele by the Hortonville (Wisconsin) Middle School.

At their first rehearsal, band members took their seats and introduced themselves to each other to the accompaniment of trills and arpeggios as others warmed up their instruments. After welcoming the musicians and telling how they came to be, Eisele launched into their first piece, a spirited and moving rendition of the "National Emblem March."

"We’re starting something new!" Eisele exulted as the last notes died away.

Based on the quality of the music at rehearsal, attendees at tonight’s performance are in for a big treat—and this is only the beginning, Eisele promises.

"I’d like to make it a little bigger, and eventually we would like it to grow, with 80 to 90 people," Eisele said. "I already have selections in mind for next year."