Rainbow Division Band performs free concert at Westerleigh Park, Staten Island August 6th

STATEN ISLAND, NY (07/31/2015)(readMedia)-- Reporters whose readers love music, any music, will want to cover this band and hear them play.

WHO: 42ND Infantry "Rainbow Division" Band of the New York Army National Guard

WHEN: Thursday, August 6th, 2015 at 7:30 pm

WHERE: Westerleigh Park, Staten Island, New York

WHAT: FREE performance is a part of annual training tour for New York's Army National Guard

CONTACT: Sgt. 1st Class Becky Rapp at (914) 944-6552 or becky.rapp@us.army.mil

Bandmembers of the famed "Rainbow Division" 42nd Infantry appear Thursday in a free concert at Westerleigh Park. The concerts, conducted as part of an annual training tour, deliver music spanning and connecting generations. With the expected military traditional and classical music, there is also baroque, contemporary pop and jazz, to the new "Three Day Pass" rock band featuring punk, ska and garage rock.

Background: The "Rainbow Division" Band has a long history, playing for troops in World War I when the nickname "Rainbow" Division was adopted within the 42nd Infantry. Music is broad and varied, with multiple groups performing. Classical music, marches, patriotic selections, jazz, rock and popular music are all within the band's repertoire. Many musicians capably play more than one instrument. The band has historically played and performed wherever needed, whether as musicians for morale, stretcher bearers in care of wounded or as security more recently in Tikrit, Iraq. "Stretching across America like a rainbow" was a geographical reference for a group whose widely spread origins across the country came together proudly in a unit of precision and inclusion.

Today all bandmembers train and maintain fitness on the same weapons and combat skill that all Soldiers learn, additionally practicing music. Members of New York's Army National Guard since 1947, the band deployed in 2005 to Iraq as part of the 42nd Infantry's Division headquarters. Band members played at ceremonies, in dining halls, for Iraqi officials and sometimes alongside Iraqi musicians.

The 42nd Infantry Division Band is under the command of Chief Warrant Officer Mark L. Kimes and 1st Sergeant Leslie G. Saroka.

For more information contact Sgt. 1st Class Becky Rapp (914) 944-6552 or e-mail: becky.rapp@us.army.mil