MUSCATINE, Iowa — The Wesley Winds have been making music for a long time — almost 20 years. They’ve endured a name-change and the faces of the musicians have changed from time to time, but their music continues to enhance the worship services at Wesley United Methodist Church several times a year.

The group has also provided entertainment at Muscatine’s Holiday Stroll, the Gift of Music, and area nursing homes and other functions.

The group had been calling themselves the Wesley Brass, but changed their name because not all of the available musicians played brass instruments.

While the quartet’s music is predominantly sacred, including arrangements of hymns, classical, gospel and spiritual numbers, they often add a twist of swing or jazz and sometimes include secular compositions.

Members of The Wesley Winds include Anne Olson on soprano and alto saxophone, Bruce Huston on euphonium, Alan Brotherton on trombone and Jon Fasanelli-Cawelti on cornet. Each of the members is involved in several other musical groups in the community as well.

Olson, retired Wesley church organist, also plays piano and plays in the Mad Creek Mudcats and River City Big Band. She is also a prize-winning photographer.

Huston, who is retired from Grain Processing Corp., is in the Muscatine Civic Chorale, Elks Chanters, Quad City Wind Ensemble and plays in the Wesley bell choir.

Brotherton, also retired from GPC, plays in the Mad Creek Mudcats and the River City Big Band.

Fasanelli-Cawelti teaches drawing and art appreciation at Muscatine Community College and is a practicing artist. He also plays in the Mad Creek Mudcats and the River City Big Band, as well as the Muscatine Symphony Orchestra.

The group’s latest endeavor, a recently recorded and released CD called “The Wesley Winds Christmas Hits and Selected Other Favorites,” is a collection of 24 familiar tunes from “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” to “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” The CD was recorded by Lowell Sundermann at the church.

“We worked a long time on that one set of Christmas music, so we had to get it recorded. It was not something that came easy,” Olson explained.

Not only will the CD get folks in the holiday mood, but it will benefit a project that is near and dear to the hearts of the Wesley family — the Muscatine Children’s and Youth Choirs’ Kosovo Project, a music exchange between a children’s choir in Kosovo and the Muscatine Children’s Choir.

“We wanted to do a CD to have a record of what we were doing musically and the Kosovo project was a nice fit for that,” Brotherton said.

According to a Kosovo Project brochure, the project was started in 2004 when a dozen young people from war-ravaged Gjakove, Kosovo, came to Muscatine for two weeks of home stays, rehearsing and performing across Iowa. In 2005, 32 Muscatine children, youth, adults and medical professionals, traveled to Gjakove to teach classes, provide health screenings and eye exams and to perform. Olson and Fasanelli-Cawelti were among those who went that summer.

“It’s a humanitarian mission,” Olson said. “We did classes in music, English, art, photography … the adults teach classes while they’re there. School isn’t in session in the summer, but kids came. They wanted to learn so badly.”

“We performed for the military and in several different venues and visited several churches,” Fasanelli-Cawelti added.

As a result of the exchange, several students have come to Muscatine from Kosovo for an education.

“We had two girls (from Kosovo) who graduated from Muscatine High School two years ago and two girls graduated last year and all four are at MCC now,” Olson said. “We have a boy now that’s at MCC and another boy at the high school, all from this Kosovo exchange group.”

Olson said the CD is available for a suggested donation of $10, although they would welcome any donation, as all monies will benefit the Kosovo Project. The CDs are available from any Wesley Winds member or in the Wesley Church Office.

Correspondent contact information

Deidre Pearson 563-264-2331

chickenscratch@hotmail.com.