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The Indiana Daily Student

arts

All-Campus Band open to all majors

Any enrolled student at IU, regardless of major, can further their music career in the Jacobs School of Music All-Campus Band.

By registering in the music school’s MUS-X 1 course, up to 150 students can join. No audition is required, but a basic ability to read music and play an instrument is required, co-conductor Tiffany Galus said.

“If you want to be a member of the All-Campus Band, you are in the All-Campus Band,” Galus said. “The audition is really just a chair placement to see what part best fits each person.”

Auditions take place in the second week of every semester, and the ensemble meets every Monday for an hour and a half of rehearsal before the end-of-semester concert.

Tonight’s Spring Concert is meant to showcase all ability levels of the band’s members after their 10 total rehearsals, Galus said.

Galus and co-conductor Ryan Yahl said they wanted to make sure all players felt included whether they are music majors playing a secondary instrument or non-music majors who just enjoy playing.

“It’s really cool to see this combination of students come from all around campus, whether it be education, business, psychology, Spanish, whatever their major may be, come together and play,” Yahl said. “To have as big of a group as we do, it’s pretty outstanding.”

The size of the band 
varies between semesters, with about 65 to 80 members in the fall semester and up to 100 in the spring, when marching band members are looking for ensemble experience.

The band only has about 10 music majors, Galus said. They can serve as leaders within their sections, but all of the ensemble’s players, from freshmen to graduate students, work together as a group.

Members of the community can also be in the band as long as they are part of a continuing education program, Galus said.

This semester, two of the euphonium players in the band are only taking one class each at IU, but both have been able to play in the band.

“It’s really just a fun, musical atmosphere,” Yahl said. “There’s no pressure. The only pressure is that we only have one rehearsal per week, and we have to use that time wisely to prepare for the concert at the end of the 
semester.”

Tonight’s concert will include traditional band staples by composers Alfred Reed and Percy Grainger, but it will also feature pieces brand new to IU.

One new piece, “Folk Song Festival,” by Ryan Nowlin, was commissioned by a friend of Yahl who is Italian and Irish.

Nowlin, who is now an assistant director of the United States Marine Band, composed the piece from three Italian and three Irish folk songs.

“We have pieces that are brand new, unique pieces that are making their Bloomington premiere, as well as pieces that are tried and true and played by bands all over the world,” Yahl said.

Galus said she enjoys working with the All-Campus Band because it allows the community of IU to come together through music.

“It’s a melting pot of personalities, majors and experience levels, and I think that’s really inspiring for people in the audience,” 
Galus said.

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