By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Hutchinson Municipal Band has cancelled the balance of its summer schedule.
"It was a combination of two issues," said President Randy Johnston. "One, with the mask order being executed inside buildings, we didn't have an easy way to get practices done. That was one issue. Then, the secondary issue was, on our last concert that we performed, the patriotic concert, we actually had a number of attendees that didn't actually give social distancing to the band. Again, we were afraid of not being able to either protect the audience or the band."
Because of COVID-19, the schedule had already undergone some changes.
"Normally, we would do the full band in the early part of the season until about this week," Johnston said. "We'd normally do one last concert now and then we'd have two or three jazz concerts after that. We chose to put the jazz concerts first this year because the units were smaller. It was easier to spread the bands. We did two sessions with them and one with the regular band. It really means three concerts are cancelled."
The activities of the brass quintet that happen later in the year are still up for discussion.
"Our intent right now is to support the Veteran's Day event and Christmas Parade and so forth," Johnston said. "It's just too doggone hard to tell right now, but we would still have the brass quintet circulate for concerts on request."
Fifteen cases of COVID-19 had their demographic information released Monday by the Reno County Health Department for the first time.