Western Michigan University’s three concert bands filled Miller Auditorium for an afternoon of music, kicking off this season of PMN’s Performing Arts Showcase with a recording from February 2026.
Director of Bands Scott Boerma opened the show by introducing the University Concert Band, a roughly 140-member ensemble conducted by Dr. Mary Land that draws music majors, music education students, and non-majors alike — many of them playing secondary instruments to prepare for teaching careers in K-12 schools. The band’s set included a piece paired with an original video created by a student in WMU’s music and technology program, timed to match the music, and closed with Samuel Hazo’s “Arabesque,” featuring flutist Jack Dennis and graduate student Sarah Staden alongside the percussion section.
Following an intermission, the University Symphonic Band, led by Trey Harris and Jario Cabrera, took the stage with a program built around discovery and tribute. The band performed a rarely staged 1952 work by William Grant Still, written for the sesquicentennial of the United States Military Academy at West Point — a piece so infrequently performed that only two recordings exist on YouTube. The set also included “Two Horse Suite,” a collection of Michigan folk songs arranged by Michigan composer Andrew David Perkins that won the Ostwald Award for outstanding wind band composition, and closed with Alfred Reed’s “Armenian Dances.”
The afternoon closed with the University Wind Symphony under Scott Boerma, whose set leaned into Latin rhythm, including a lively work by a Cuban American composer that put the percussion section through its paces, alongside other pieces the ensemble was preparing that season.
