If you visit Golden Gate Park in summer, you’re likely to hear the sound of Mark Nemoyten’s horn drifting through the trees.
The Novato resident has been the solo cornet and trumpet player for the Golden Gate Park Band since 1996, and he’ll help kick off the long-running ensemble’s 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.
“It’s one of the — unfortunately — best-kept secrets in San Francisco of free music, and it’s a high quality of musicians,” Nemoyten said. “Some people will see us and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know this was here.’”
The Golden Gate Park Band has been performing free concerts on Sunday afternoons in San Francisco’s largest urban park since 1882. Nemoyten calls the band San Francisco’s “original multicultural arts organization.” The program of concerts this summer features collaborations with Polish, Armenian, Ukrainian, Scottish and Hungarian cultural organizations, with works by composers representing those cultures.
“All of these (concerts honoring) ethnic or national groups are done in conjunction with an organization that’s connected to that community,” Nemoyten said.
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.
“At first we tried to do it on Pride Sunday and found out that didn’t work because all the performers were busy that day,” Nemoyten said.
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.
“It was something I was pretty good at from a young age,” Nemoyten said. “I got recognition for it; I played all through school. I had some really good mentors and teachers along the way.”
Making a career out of music didn’t come to Nemoyten’s 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.
“In the mid-’70s, every Holiday Inn in every town in the Midwest had music at least five or six nights a week,” Nemoyten said. “There was a huge demand for cover bands. We covered Stevie Wonder, Tower of Power, Average White Band — all that stuff was really big at that point.”
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.
“I was less of a big fish in a small pond,” he said. “I was just one of maybe 15 trumpet majors in the practice rooms.”
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.
“I came from playing in college bands where you rehearsed all semester,” Nemoyten said. “And here it was a one-hour rehearsal, and you didn’t know what you were going to play until you showed up, and there’s music on your stand. You’re just hitting the spots that might be troublesome in concert, where the tempo changes or something.”
Like many small ensembles, the Golden Gate Park Band has persevered through uncertain times — few more so than when the band’s 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.
Nemoyten became president of the band at this time and helped lead the band’s successful attempt to apply for nonprofit status.
“We’ve rallied people in the community to help us out,” Nemoyten said. “We don’t 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’ve kind of learned as we’ve gone along how to run a nonprofit and how to keep the band going.”
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