![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIJ-L-NEMOYTEN-0425-01-e1777063960333.jpg\")
Mark Nemoyten performs with the Golden Gate Park Band. (Photo by Willy Johnson)<\/p>\nIf you visit Golden Gate Park in summer, you\u2019re likely to hear the sound of Mark Nemoyten\u2019s horn drifting through the trees.<\/p>\n
The Novato resident has been the solo cornet and trumpet player for the Golden Gate Park Band since 1996, and he\u2019ll help kick off the long-running ensemble\u2019s 144th season with a concert at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Golden Gate Park Bandshell featuring a program of songs by Gustav Holst, George Gershwin, John Philip Sousa and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of the \u2014 unfortunately \u2014 best-kept secrets in San Francisco of free music, and it\u2019s a high quality of musicians,\u201d Nemoyten said. \u201cSome people will see us and say, \u2018Wow, I didn\u2019t know this was here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The Golden Gate Park Band has been performing free concerts on Sunday afternoons in San Francisco\u2019s largest urban park since 1882. Nemoyten calls the band San Francisco\u2019s \u201coriginal multicultural arts organization.\u201d The program of concerts this summer features collaborations with Polish, Armenian, Ukrainian, Scottish and Hungarian cultural organizations, with works by composers representing those cultures.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these (concerts honoring) ethnic or national groups are done in conjunction with an organization that\u2019s connected to that community,\u201d Nemoyten said.<\/p>\n
Other highlights of the season include a Juneteenth concert on June 21 featuring vocal trio the Sistas and a Pride concert on June 7 featuring drag performers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first we tried to do it on Pride Sunday and found out that didn\u2019t work because all the performers were busy that day,\u201d Nemoyten said.<\/p>\n
Mark Nemoyten performs with the Golden Gate Park Band. (Photo by Willy Johnson)<\/p>\n
For the 70-year-old, who was born and raised in Ohio, his leadership in the Golden Gate Park Band is one of many highlights of a lengthy career. The son of horn player Bill Nemoyten, a trombonist known for his skill with multiple brass instruments, Nemoyten started out playing trumpet at 9 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was something I was pretty good at from a young age,\u201d Nemoyten said. \u201cI got recognition for it; I played all through school. I had some really good mentors and teachers along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Making a career out of music didn\u2019t come to Nemoyten\u2019s mind until shortly after he graduated high school, when some friends invited him to join a band that was playing gigs regularly at bars and restaurants in the Quincy, Illinois, area.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the mid-\u201970s, every Holiday Inn in every town in the Midwest had music at least five or six nights a week,\u201d Nemoyten said. \u201cThere was a huge demand for cover bands. We covered Stevie Wonder, Tower of Power, Average White Band \u2014 all that stuff was really big at that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nemoyten says this golden age for live bands dried up during the subsequent disco era, when DJs became a less expensive option for bookers. With his cover band no longer viable, he moved out to San Francisco to pursue further musical studies at San Francisco State.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was less of a big fish in a small pond,\u201d he said. \u201cI was just one of maybe 15 trumpet majors in the practice rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nemoyten started freelancing with the Golden Gate Park Band in 1981. Under the auspices of conductor Robert Hansen, a decorated World War II veteran legendary among those who played in the band for his no-nonsense military demeanor, Nemoyten found himself challenged and invigorated by the fast-paced environment of a professional small orchestra.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came from playing in college bands where you rehearsed all semester,\u201d Nemoyten said. \u201cAnd here it was a one-hour rehearsal, and you didn\u2019t know what you were going to play until you showed up, and there\u2019s music on your stand. You\u2019re just hitting the spots that might be troublesome in concert, where the tempo changes or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many small ensembles, the Golden Gate Park Band has persevered through uncertain times \u2014 few more so than when the band\u2019s funding was threatened following the recent corruption scandal around San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru, who was convicted of honest services wire fraud in 2022 for misappropriating public funds.<\/p>\n
Nemoyten became president of the band at this time and helped lead the band\u2019s successful attempt to apply for nonprofit status.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve rallied people in the community to help us out,\u201d Nemoyten said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have any of the really big donors that the symphony or the opera has, but we have enough to get by, at least for the last four or five years. We\u2019ve kind of learned as we\u2019ve gone along how to run a nonprofit and how to keep the band going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you visit Golden Gate Park in summer, you\u2019re likely to hear the sound of Mark Nemoyten\u2019s horn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,967,971,992,330,6682,180,993,266,101,103,102,104,106,105,420],"class_list":{"0":"post-285995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-lifestyle","11":"tag-marin-county","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-music-and-concerts","14":"tag-newsletter","15":"tag-north-bay","16":"tag-northern-california","17":"tag-san-francisco","18":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","19":"tag-san-francisco-news","20":"tag-sf","21":"tag-sf-headlines","22":"tag-sf-news","23":"tag-things-to-do"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}