“The President’s Own” United States Marine Band invites you to attend the Sousa Season Opener on Sunday, Jan. 8 to kick off the 2023 concert season at 2 p.m. at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts Concert Hall in Fairfax, Va. Audience members can also watch virtually via livestream. 

This concert features multiple Sousa marches including the beloved “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” Marine Band Director Col. Jason K. Fettig’s favorite “Nobles of the Mystic Shrine,” and other marches which may take audience members by surprise. “No Sousa concert would be complete without music by the March King himself,” Assistant Director Major Ryan Nowlin said.

John Philip Sousa, the Marine Band’s 17th director, grew up with the band, beginning his career as an apprentice musician at the young age of 13. Sousa remained in the band until he was 20, when he set off to Philadelphia to work as a composer, arranger, and proofreader for publishing houses. While on tour in St. Louis, he received a telegram offering him the leadership of the Marine Band. He accepted and reported for duty on Oct. 1, 1880, becoming the band’s 17th director at just 25 years of age. 

Sousa approached the role unlike any of his predecessors. By elevating the band’s instrumentation and standard for musical excellence, he molded his musicians into the country’s premier military band, and brought the Marine Band to an unprecedented caliber of musical skill that’s been upheld by every director since. So it’s only fitting that in the Marine Band’s 225th year of existence, the season opens with a concert paying homage to the band’s former leader. 

While selecting the program for the season opener, Nowlin asked himself “What would Sousa have programmed and championed himself?” Given that Sousa helped bring orchestral music to the masses, audiences can expect fantastic, historic, orchestral works by luminaries of classical music including Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonín Dvořák, Ralph Vaughn Williams, and more. The program will also feature cornet soloist Staff Sgt. Chris Larios on Frank Simon’s “Willow Echoes,” “a showcase of virtuosity and a nice link to Sousa from the past,” according to Nowlin.

The concert will close with Gioachino Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, a familiar overture that everyone will recognize. “When those trumpets play the call at the end, it’s electrifying,” Nowlin said. 

Lastly, the concert will also feature various displays of Sousa history: old concert programs, a replica of Sousa’s uniform, a medal awarded to Sousa, and the baton presented to him from the Marine Band at his 1892 farewell concert. This concert is free, and no tickets are required.

Livestream

Program & Notes

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