The Mississippi State University Community Band enables local musicians to further their skills and perform with other community members and MSU students.
The band was formed in 2004 when Craig Aarhus took the MSU assistant director of bands position.
The band program needed a third concert band because the department grew, but they also needed more students to form an entire band. Other schools created community bands helping fill this need, so the band directors worked out a model for the MSU Community Band, he said.
“We started this band out of necessity,” Aarhus said. “It’s a really good mix of our university students and community members.”
The band usually has an even amount of students and local musicians.
“This semester, the band will have about 43 students and 43 community players. Some of the band members are high school students from the Starkville area. In the past some of the musicians have been from Tupelo, Winona, Forrest, Louisville and Ackerman,” Aarhus said. “We wanted it to be an experience for adults, but we also wanted to use it as a recruiting tool for MSU.”
Being involved in the community band also allows members a chance to earn credits in the Continuing Education Department.
“The people who use it the most are teachers. They get three CEU’s for how much time they spent on the band,” manager of Continuing Education, Patricia Brock, said. “[The band] is a really good way to mesh the people to let them feel involved. I love that it gets the community involved on campus.”
MSU mathematics professor Bruce Ebanks has been playing clarinet for about 49 years and always looks for opportunities to play. The band is a way for him to interact with students and feel younger, he said.
“When the community band started up, I was really interested and wanted to get started right away,” said Ebanks. “I think it’s great to get people of different generations together to work on a joint project. We don’t get to do that too much in life.”
Mississippi University for Women mathematics professor, Bonnie Oppenheimer, plays Oboe for the band.
“The band plays music ranging from traditional military band music to arrangements of popular songs,” she said. “We do a march each concert, and something slow and beautiful.”
Starkville resident, Ellen Goodman, plays the flute in the community band.
“We hope our excitement about performing is felt by the audience. Members of the audience might be surprised to find out their professor, teacher or next door neighbor have a musical talent,” she said.
The band will have two performances on March 1 and April 19 in the McComas Auditorium at 3 p.m.
To join the band, members must be at least 15 years old and pay a registration fee that helps pay for the publicity done by the Continuing Education Department, Aarhus said.