Upcoming Events

Ritz Barbecue, Found in the 60’s, Allentown Fair, and PAMPS present

Enjoy exclusive VIP seating with tables and chairs under our tent for the “Music Alive” concert series and car shows at Ritz Barbecue. This seating is free for PAMPS members and $5 for non-members. Great food, great music, great fun! These events benefit Canine Partners for Life and MountainView Horse Rescue.

Buy a year-long membership in the Pennsylvania Music Preservation Society and get discount prices for all our events, including free VIP seating for all the Ritz Barbecue Car Show Concerts for the next year!
New memberships available by clicking here.

Oct 8: Johnny’s Jukebox
Oct 22: The SwingTime Dolls

News

Fall at the Fairgrounds Series

Enjoy live music and food trucks from 5:00 to 7:00 every Wednesday night until October 18 at the Farmerama Stage at the Allentown Fairgrounds! This weekly series is free and open to the public. For more info, go to https://web.lehighvalleychamber.org/events.

PAMPS sponsors four marching bands at the 2023 Great Allentown Fair

The Pennsylvania Music Preservation Society was proud to sponsor, as a gift to the 2023 Great Allentown Fair, four local marching bands over four consecutive days, as part of our Music Alive series.
We are grateful to our other sponsors:
Banko Beverage · B. F. Brown & Company Asphalt Paving · Joe Clark & Family · Meis Road Solutions & Towing · Service Electric · Signal · WilliamSigns · Yuengling

Thursday, Aug 31: **MacKay Pipe Band**
The MacKay Pipe Band of South Bethlehem, PA was originally founded in the early 1980s in Lansdowne, PA by piper Lee Lightle. The first Pipe Major, Ritch Lipsky, and first Drum Major, Tommy Moore, championed a unique military-style pipe band for civilians. Over 40 years later, MacKay continues to proudly serve as one of the oldest continuously operating military-style bands in eastern Pennsylvania. Under the direction of current Pipe Major Kent Wires and Drum Major Lee Evett, MacKay has performed up and down the East Coast including Washington, DC and Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

Friday, Sept 1: **Kingdom Warrior Band**
Kingdom Warrior Band was founded on April 2022. The directors are Joselly Vidal-Toro and his wife Yasmin Cruz, who received support and guidance to establish the band from Norman Torres and Brenda Ithier, members of the Apostolic House of Worship and Restoration. Kingdom Warrior Band has taken two workshops given by Pastor Eddie Rojas and his wife Pastor Giselle, and from Pastor Jose Miguel Perez of “Guerreros de Fe” from Ponce, Puerto Rico.
Jansel Espinal is the captain of the Kingdom Warrior Band, which now has a total of 17 members. Its mission is to bring joy to its listeners, and to help the youth who are in need or facing personal challenges to find their purpose.

Saturday, Sept 2: **Allentown Hobo Band**
The Hobo Band, a popular fixture at Halloween parades in the Lehigh Valley region, has been making merry and mayhem for nearly a quarter century. Little is taken seriously by the 30 members, who range in age from 11 to senior citizens. The members come from all walks of life, and anyone who plays or wants to play an instrument is welcome to join, according to leader and ”grand poobah” Allan Trump. The band began as an offshoot of the Original Hobo Philharmonic Precision Marching Band formed by students at Dieruff High School in 1974 to raise money to buy drums. ”We have a great time,” says flutist Wendy Siegfried, who has played in the band since the seventh grade.

Sunday, Sept 3: **The Big Easy Easton Brass**
The Big Easy Easton Brass is a community band, open to all ages and skill levels, who bring a New Orleans tradition to the streets of the Lehigh Valley. Anyone can walk along, dance along, sing along, shake a tambourine, blow bubbles, or learn to play an instrument and jump in! Free to join, the band rehearses at the Easton Area Community Center.

Saying goodbye

Jeff Tapler, Holly Faris (as Marilyn Monroe), Bill Johnson (as Bob Hope), Michelle DellaFave, Carole Gorney, and Dave Follweiler, just after the USO tribute show at the Agri-Plex in May 2019.

Our former board president, Jeffrey J. “Uncle Jeffrey” Tapler, passed away on October 3, 2022 at St. Luke’s Hospital, Allentown. He was the husband of Sharon A. Fair-Tapler, with whom he shared nearly 35 years of marriage. Born in Allentown, he was the son of the late William F. and Marie S. (Diehl) Tapler. He was a member of Upper Milford Mennonite Church, Zionsville. Formerly, he was Chief of Police for L. Milford Twp. as well as working prior as a law enforcement officer for years with various local departments including Macungie, Emmaus, Salisbury Township, and Coopersburg. Also in Salisbury Township, he worked as an EMA Director. Jeffrey worked as a county radio dispatcher and owned Dispatch Answering Service. “Uncle Jeffrey” will always be remembered for his weekend polka music and Pennsylvania Dutch shows on the local cable TV station, cwtap.tv.

We were likewise deeply saddened when our executive director Carole Gorney Bryant passed away in June 2021 from MDS, a bone cancer pre-leukemia condition, at the Anderson Campus of St. Luke’s Hospital near Easton, PA. She is survived by her husband Michael Bryant, a step-daughter Deborah, and her brother Ken Gorney of Tempe, Arizona. Carole, a retired professor, created the public relations course and taught for 25 years at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA. As a crisis communication expert, Carole wrote crisis manuals for Lockheed Martin and the EPA. Receiving two Fulbright Scholar awards, Carole taught journalism and public relations at a Shanghai, China university in 1991-92 and 1997-98. After retiring, Carole wrote a weekly column in addition to local theater reviews for the Bethlehem Press. Carole attended Trinity Church of Bethlehem and sang in the choir. As PAMPS executive director since 2019, Carole’s biggest goal and dream was for PAMPS events to be successful. Donations in memoriam may be given to the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society.