This year’s Gorge Winds Christmas Concert will be Music Director Sam Grotte’s last.
After 16 years, Grotte, who founded the band in 2000, is retiring.
The community will have two chances to say goodbye.
Instead of one performance this holiday season, the Gorge Winds will have two: The first concert is Friday, Dec. 18, at 7 p.m. at Hood River Valley High School. The second is Sunday, Dec. 20 at 3 p.m. at Calvary Baptist Church in The Dalles.
Grotte was born in Northwood, N.D. in 1933 and moved to Montana when he was 14.
He received his degree in music from Montana State University. While in school, Grotte spent his summers working for the forest service building lookout towers. He joined the smokejumpers and fought remote wildfires, parachuting from airplanes to fight them on the ground.
After graduation, Grotte taught music for one year before deciding to set aside his trumpet and French horn to join the Air Force.
He served in active duty for 13 years and in the reserves for seven. While in the Air Force, Grotte flew a Beechcraft T-34 Mentor, North American T-28 Trojan, Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star, F-86 Sabre, F-100 Super Sabre and Convair F-102 Delta Dagger.
He lived in Germany, Alaska, South Carolina and Texas and flew missions to Vietnam in an 0-1 aircraft dropping chemicals ahead of F-100s.
After serving in the Air Force, Grotte became a pilot for American Airlines, and for 25 years flew the Lockheed L-188 Electra, the DC-10, and the Boeing 727 and 707.
Towards the end of his airline career, Grotte decided to dust off his instruments after not having played a note for more than 35 years.
He joined the local jazz band and after retiring from American Airlines at age 59 became the music director of the White Salmon Jazz Band.
Grotte also played in the pit orchestra for musicals in the gorge. He joined the Sinfonietta in Hood River, and played with the Whiskey Flats Band and the Portland Metro Band.
“I hardly saw him because he was so involved in music,” Grotte’s wife Diana joked.
After seven years directing in White Salmon, Grotte decided he wanted to start his own band.
“He really wanted something more robust, with more brass instruments,” Diana said.
Grotte got in contact with Greg Weast, who had previously directed Gorge Winds in the 80s but the band had stopped playing.
With the help of Weast and Diana, Grotte brought Gorge Winds back in January of 2000.
Three months before, Diana took her first music lesson. She spoke four languages but couldn’t read music.
“I had never played music in my whole life but he kept bugging me,” Diana said. “I thought I’d show him I’m not capable of learning.”
Instead, Diana was in the Gorge Winds Concert Band playing alto saxophone at the first community concert in April. The band performed four more times in the spring and summer, including an Independence Day celebration in Hood River, and had their first Christmas concert at The Dalles Civic Auditorium on Dec. 10.
Under Grotte’s direction, Christmas concerts in The Dalles became a yearly tradition. Along with performing at the Civic, Gorge Winds played at Flagstone Senior Living, The Dalles Middle School and Mid-Columbia Medical Center.
“Sam always wanted to make sure this was a community band and that anyone that could play had a chance to join,” Diana said.
Grotte also formed the Gorge Jazz Band and Brass Choir.
Along with directing, conducting and playing music all over the gorge, he has also helped in the local schools.
Just this week, Grotte played in the Veterans Day assembly at The Dalles Middle School Tuesday and was back at the middle school Friday morning working with the trumpet players.
He and Larry Loop will co-direct the Gorge Winds Christmas concerts this year.
Admission is free and donations are welcome.
“Sam has been a delight for me to work with over the last four years and a very, very nice gentleman,” Loop said. “We will miss him greatly. We want to encourage people to come out and support Sam in our biggest concert of the year.”
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