Alum Directs Independence Day Concert

Westmont alumnus Paul Mori ’77 directs the Prime Time Band’s free Fourth of July Concert, presented by the Pierre Claeyssens Veterans Foundation, on Friday, July 4, at 5 p.m. at the Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens. Guests are encouraged to bring a blanket or low-back chair.

The performance will feature an afternoon of lively music celebrating freedom and the heroes who inspire us. The Prime Time Band will play sing-along favorites and patriotic classics that pay tribute to military heroism and American stage and screen heroes.

Mori, who earned a master’s and doctorate at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, conducted the Bach Ensemble of Baltimore in the 1990s. In 2005, he returned to Westmont, where he has taught bassoon and conducted the wind ensemble. He earned the Sue Higman Volunteer of the Year Award in 2023 for his work documenting Japanese American history and educating people about their forced relocation during World War II.