Strongsville Community Band

About the Directors

Ken Mehalko has been bringing music to Strongsville for over 50 years. From 1961-1990, he served as the Director of Instrumental Music at Strongsville High School. The ensembles he directed...marching band, concert band, orchestra and jazz ensemble received statewide and national recognition for their musical excellence at state contests, music conventions and parades such as the Orange Bowl Parade and the Tournament of Roses Parade.

In 1990 he founded the Strongsville Community Band and two years later, the Strongsville City Jazz. He and his wife, Beverly created Puttin’ On The Glitz, a successful musical variety show in Strongsville for persons over 55 years of age.

Ken has also served as a music educator in Chile for the Ohio Arts Council as a guest of the Chilean Ministry of Culture on five different occasions. He recently retired as Director of Athletic Bands at Baldwin-Wallace College. He graduated from Baldwin-Wallace in 1961 with a degree in music education and holds a master of arts degree from Case Western Reserve University.

He is a member of the Strongsville Rotary Club, performs with the Cleveland TOPS Swing Band, is a past member if the Strongsville Education Foundation and has been very active in the Ohio Music Education where he held various offices over the years.

His many honors and awards include: The Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory Alumni Achievement Award; Baldwin-Wallace College Outstanding Educator Award; Strongsville High School Distinguished Alumni Award as a former teacher and a Medical Mutual Of Ohio Outstanding Senior Volunteer Honorable Mention Award for his work with the “Glitz”. He lives in Strongsville with his wife, Beverly Wehr.

Brian D. Maskow has been named Assistant Director of the Strongsville Community Band.

A Parma resident, he is the retired Director of Bands at Lakewood High School where he taught for over 30 years. Brian has guest conducted several school honor and festival bands.

He is now a part time Educational Sales Representative for Rettig Music.

A graduate of Bowling Green State University and Northwestern University, Brian has performed on clarinet and saxophone with the Dan Zola Big Band and the Strongsville City Jazz Swing Band.

He is married to violinist Julie Elliot Maskow, retired Director of Orchestras at Fairview Park City Schools and currently the Director of the New Horizons Orchestra at Baldwin Wallace University.

James Wonnacott

The Strongsville City Jazz Swing Band is co-directed by Ken Mehalko and Jim Wonnacott. Ken founded the band in 1992.

Jim Wonnacott is also a graduate (1964) of Baldwin Wallace College (now University). He retired from the Strongsville City Schools in 1996 where he had success teaching at Center Junior High School.

As a freelance musician and arranger he has performed for many prominent bands and entertainers, including The Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and has toured with singer Al Martino and the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra featuring The Pied Pipers.

He is the founder and former Musical Director of the Baldwin Wallace College Alumni Jazz Orchestra.

Jim received the 2009 BW Conservatory Alumni Achievement Award in recognition of his accomplishments as a performer and educator in the Cleveland area and his dedication to the Alumni Jazz Orchestra and was awarded the BW Alumni Association Merit Award in May, 2011.

On July 11, 2012 the Cleveland TOPS Swingband named Jim as its new Music Director. Jim was inducted into the Euclid High School Alumni Association Distinguished Alumni Achievement Hall of Fame in May, 2013.

He and his wife, Marcia, are 46-year residents of Columbia Station.