Above / Kevin Kelly, Music Director of the Naperville Chorus, led the choral group and the Naperville Municipal Band during a performance of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” on July 2, 2026, at the Naperville Community Concert Center in Central Park.
The annual Naperville Municipal Band Independence Day concert with the performance of the “1812 Overture” accompanied by six cannons, again attracted thousands of band fans to fill Central Park for an evening of patriotic music and familiar melodies.
The City band also accompanied the Naperville Chorus during a set of songs that included “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which ended up being the final song of the evening.
Published in The Atlantic in 1862, the poetic words of Julia Ward Howe were sung to the tune of an 1850s camp-meeting song titled “Say, Brother, Will You Meet Us?” In time, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” became the most widely sung of all Union songs during the Civil War and is often considered the Union’s Civil War anthem…