(Radio Iowa) – The Glenn Miller Music Festival returns to Clarinda for the 47th time this week, with concerts, events, and food to celebrate the famed band leader in his birthplace. Shari Greenwood, executive director of the Glenn Miller Museum, says the festival kicks off Thursday evening with a picnic at the Clarinda High School commons and a concert featuring the U-S Air Force band, Shades of Blue. Greenwood says Friday will be jam-packed, starting with morning events. “We have our stage show, which is introducing the winners of the scholarship competition and our Glenn Miller (Birthplace Society) Big Band plays,” Greenwood says. “Then, in the afternoon at 1, we have Adam Swanson, the four-time world champion ragtime piano player, and after lunch we also have a new band down here, the Louie Pettinelli Experience. Then, of course, Friday night at 7:30 is our Glenn Miller Orchestra in the (high school) auditorium.”

Saturday morning begins with a big band breakfast and pancake feed at the fire station featuring the Northwest Missouri State University jazz ensemble. Other Saturday concerts include Shin Shininger and the Shinsings after lunch, the Moonlight Serenade Orchestra at 3:30 p.m., and the Glenn Miller Orchestra at the Clarinda gym at 7:30 p.m., which will also include a swing dance competition. Greenwood says a free outdoor concert Sunday at 1:30 p.m. featuring the Iowa Military Veterans Band will wrap up the festival. “This is a band that has 105 members, so when I said, ‘It’d be great to have this band here,’ my board looked at me like, ‘What are you going to do with 105 members?’ There’s about 65 of them that are coming on Sunday,” she says. “So, we’ve got lots of concerts, other events, free concerts, food. It should be a really good weekend.”

Glen Miller

The festival includes hearing the finalists and awarding the Glenn Miller Music Scholarships on Thursday. Greenwood says $12,000 is given to the top three vocalists and instrumentalists who have applied for the scholarship, which assists high school seniors and first-year college students who plan to make music a central part of their lives. “These kids send in a music selection, a lot of paperwork, information about themselves, and they get graded before the top 10 from each category come to Clarinda to compete,” Greenwood says. “These kids also come on their own dime, so when they get here we try to work on home stays and make sure they have everything they need if they’re not traveling with a parent.”

The Glenn Miller Birthplace Society Museum is also open daily and will be free to visit on Sunday.

On the web at: glennmiller.org/festival