This year marks the 250th Anniversary of The United States of America, and “The President’s Own” will kick off the occasion with a Spring Concert Season filled with uniquely programmed concerts designed to spark the patriotism in audience members.

“There are certain parts of the American story that are tied directly to music, to our culture and to the melting pot that is America, each of the programs that you'll see throughout the course of the Spring season in 2026 are American-driven, American composed music, showcasing different parts of our history,” Marine Band Director Lt. Col. Ryan Nowlin said.

Read on below to hear from the Marine Band’s directors about the special performances they have planned for the 2026 Spring Concert Season:

Sousa Season Opener: “The Many-Sided Sousa”
Sunday, Jan. 18 | 2 pm
NOVA

The Marine Band will open the season with its annual Sousa Season Opener, programmed to celebrate the work of the “March King.” John Philip Sousa is responsible for bringing the United States Marine Band to an unprecedented level of excellence. He began his career as an apprentice musician with the band at age 13 and remained in the band until he was 20, leaving for 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.

“I’m especially excited for Staff Sgt. Hannah Davis to perform a beautiful song by Sousa titled “The Crystal Lute,” Nowlin said. He continued, “it’s a beautiful song that rarely gets played. Sousa wrote ‘The Crystal Lute’ for soprano because he used to tour with these incredible sopranos. Hannah’s voice allows us access to all that literature that the Marine Band hasn’t performed in many years because she’s a soprano as well. I'm excited to bring some of these things that have been gone for so many years back to life!”

The packed program will feature a number of Sousa classics, but also includes famous pieces from other American composers and beyond. Highlights include Jacques Offenbach’s Galop from Geneviève de Brabant, the basis for the Marines’ Hymn, Pablo de Sarasate’s Carmen fantaisie, Opus 25, and Patrick Gilmore’s When Johnny Comes Marching Home, made famous during the American Civil War as a celebration of the hoped-for return of Union soldiers.

Also featured are guest conductor Col. John R. Bourgeois, USMC (Ret.), 25th Director of the Marine Band, and guest moderator Loras John Schissel, senior musicologist at the Library of Congress!

“Home and Heart”
Sunday, Feb. 1 | 2 pm
1st Lt. Jose D. Toranzo, conducting
Marine Chamber Orchestra at NOVA

Join the Marine Chamber Orchestra for a program kicking off with Aaron’s Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. Commissioned by the Cincinnati Symphony during the darkest days of World War II, Copland honored the everyday individuals who comprised the backbone of American life and the composition quickly became one of Copland’s most beloved works after its première in 1943.

“Home and Heart centers on American music and the idea of belonging,” said Marine Band Assistant Director 1st. Lt. Jose Toranzo. He continued, “The first half focuses on American roots. Lukas Foss’s Three American Pieces has an open, youthful character shaped by folk-like material, while George Whitefield Chadwick’s Sinfonietta in D represents an earlier generation of American orchestral writing. From there, the program shifts into something more personal. Amy Beach’s Three Browning Songs for Soprano and Orchestra and David Diamond’s Music for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet explore love, vulnerability and tragedy drawn from literature through the American lens.”

Two soloists will headline the show: violinist Master Gunnery Sgt. Erika Sato on Foss’s Three American Pieces and soprano vocalist Staff Sgt. Hannah Davis on Beach’s Three Browning Songs.

“American Dreams”
Sunday, Feb. 8 | 2 pm
Lt. Col. Ryan Nowlin, conducting
Marine Band at NOVA

Peter Boyar’s Ellis Island: The Dream of America anchors a program of famous band pieces. Nearly an hour in length, Ellis Island was composed in 2001-02 and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Competition. Boyer composed the work to be accompanied by images of the men, women and children who passed through Ellis Island, and the Marine Band will perform the piece with the original visual accompaniment.

“Many of us can draw a lineage to those that came from different places, different countries, different heritage and even through Ellis Island specifically,” Nowlin said. “The story of America and the importance of that immigration is part of the American identity. It will make feel people feel really proud about what this country has been to people, what this country is to people and what this country can be for people in the future.”

“American Dreams” will also feature John Williams’ Liberty Fanfare, written by the renowned composer in honor of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor and placed on the program due to its physical and symbolic proximity to Boyer’s work. George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue rounds out the program with Master Gunnery Sgt. Russell Wilson soloing on piano, putting a work described by Nowlin as “simply iconic” on full display.

Concerto Competition Finals
Saturday, Feb. 14 | 2 pm
Truman Crawford Hall

High school students from around the nation will perform in the final round of the Marine Band Concerto Competition, presented as a recital open to the public in Sousa Hall at Marine Barracks Annex, Washington, D.C. Finalists for this year’s competition were chosen from a competitive pool of exceptional high school string musicians, and the winner will receive a $2,500 scholarship from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation and a solo opportunity with the Marine Band. Second and third place winners will receive $1,000 and $500 scholarships respectively. Finalists for this year’s competition include:

Elizabeth (Poppy) Song | Violin - Haworth, NJ

Sunjoo Lucas Park | Viola - Old Tappan, NJ

Alexander Fiszer | Cello - Hopewell, NJ

Olivia Shidler | Harp - Short Hills, NJ

Crystal Pang | Piano - Glen Head, NY

“American Musical Tapestry”
Sunday, Feb. 22 | 2 pm
Capt. Darren Y. Lin, conducting
Marine Band at NOVA

“’American music’ is such a broad term that ultimately does not give enough credit to the many innovative artists that call this country home,” Marine Band Associate Director Capt. Darren Y. Lin said. “This program explores many different types of ‘song’ in our American lexicon – love songs, hymns, ballads, waltzes and more!”

The concert will begin with John Philip Sousa’s March, “From Maine to Oregon,” a fitting opening recalling feelings of the expansiveness of the American continent. Also included are classics such as Charles Ives’ Variations on America and William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1, Afro-American.

William Bolcom’s Concerto Grosso for Saxophone Quartet and Band is the most substantial work on the Feb. 22 program. “Bolcom is one of my favorite composers – I find his music to be clever, incredibly intelligent, sometimes sardonic and still listener-friendly,” Lin said.

“Adagio for Strings”
Sunday, March 22 | 2 pm
Master Sgt. Karen Johnson, coordinator
Marine Chamber Orchestra at NOVA

This concert will feature a lineup of American works and highlight one of the most recognizable quartets in the American orchestral repertoire: Samuel Barber’s String Quartet in B minor, Opus 11, with “Adagio for Strings” embedded as the second movement. Barber composed the Adagio at the age of 26 while living in Austria. He was so proud of it that he wrote to a friend: “I have just finished the slow movement of my quartet today—it is a knockout!”  

The program will also include the world première of Kenji Bunch's latest work, the genre-defying son of a Japanese immigrant, as well as works by other influential American classical composers: Arthur Foote was a leading member of the “Boston Six”—composers who moved away from European music styles and characteristics—and Florence Price was the first African-American woman to have a symphony performed by a major American orchestra.  

“Be Glad Then America”
Sunday, March 29 | 2 pm
1st Lt. Jose D. Toranzo, conducting
Marine Band at NOVA

“Be Glad Then, America,” features American composers and core wind band repertoire by names including John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland and Morton Gould, planned with America’s 250th anniversary in mind. The music spans multiple generations and reflects different perspectives shaped by the American experience. Contemporary compositions are also represented with Joel Puckett’s 2025 composition Pacific Carnival Fanfare.

“William Schuman’s New England Triptych stands out right away to me as a highlight of the entire Spring Concert Season,” Toranzo said. “It’s a cornerstone of the American band repertoire, and it’s a delight to hear William Billings’ hymn tunes reimagined through a twentieth-century lens.”

“From the Canyons to the Stars”
Sunday, April 19 | 2 pm
Capt. Darren Y. Lin, conducting
Marine Chamber Orchestra at NOVA

Des Canyons aux etoiles is a monumental work that isn’t often performed due to its length and complexity. “This piece will certainly demand the full attention of the chamber orchestra and our audience – but I’m so excited to dig into this piece with my colleagues,” said Lin.

This incredible piece by Olivier Messiaen was commissioned by Alice Tully to commemorate America’s bicentennial anniversary in 1976. It was inspired by the composer’s visit to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah and contains all the grandeur one might expect from visiting the American Southwest - slow, sweeping winds through the desert, the echoes of sound through massive rock formations, and in true Messiaen fashion, the many songs of birds that call this landscape home.

Prior to Marine Chamber Orchestra’s performance of Des Canyons aux etoiles, the winner of the Marine Band’s Concerto Competition for High School musicians will open the concert with a performance of their winning solo.

“Michael Feinstein and the United States Marine Band Celebrate the Great American Songbook”
Sunday, April 26 | 4 pm
Lt. Col. Ryan Nowlin, conducting
Jazz Orchestra at Strathmore

The centerpiece of the Marine Band’s spring season is the annual gala concert at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland. This year, the Marine Band will collaborate with Michael Feinstein, five-time Grammy nominee and the foremost authority on the Great American Songbook, described by the Great American Songbook Foundation as “the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century that have stood the test of time in their life and legacy.”

A multi-platinum-selling artist, Feinstein’s dynamic career took off after meeting Ira Gershwin in 1977, when the legendary lyricist hired Feinstein to research and catalog his collection and that of his brother, George Gershwin. Since then, his career has focused on the preservation of American musical theater songs, a journey that has taken him to Broadway, the recording booth, television and more.

“We're celebrating America 250, and there are certain iconic musical parts of America's history, genres of America's history, that are uniquely American, and the top of the list, for me, is the Great American Songbook,” Nowlin said. He continued, “to have an opportunity to have the nation's premier expert on the Great American Songbook collaborate with America’s oldest continuously active professional musical organization is a match made in heaven.”

The gala concert is free but tickets are required. Patrons may request up to two free tickets at strathmore.org or in person at the Strathmore Ticket Office on a space-available basis beginning March 26. Tickets are valid until 3:45 p.m., at which time all tickets become null and void, and any remaining seats will be filled with patrons in the stand-by queue.

"Sonnets, Jazz and Morse Code"
Sunday, May 3 | 2 pm
Capt. Darren Y. Lin, conducting
Marine Band at NOVA

Soprano vocalist Staff Sgt. Hannah Davis headlines the concert as soloist on Michael Daugherty’s Labyrinth of Love, a setting of poems and prose by eight women across history. “Hannah has such incredible artistic range and I’m very excited to showcase her versatility on this exciting work,” Lin said.

“Sonnets, Jazz and Morse Code” is a program paying homage to things that inspire – Daugherty’s piece reflects settings of works by women poets and orators, Kristin Kuster’s Two Jades is a tribute to timeless Jade artifacts, and Zhou Tian’s Sinfonia is love letter to films from the Golden Age of Hollywood, the nation’s first Transcontinental Railroad and New York City.

“I have always tried to program in a way that represents the ideals and values of this great nation we all call home,” Lin said. “It is an honor to have a small opportunity to curate the playlist for America’s 250th birthday! I am excited to celebrate America 250 with my incredible colleagues, and honor the history, the stories and the people that led us to this moment.”

Learn more about the Spring 2026 Concert Season

All concerts are free and no tickets are required unless otherwise noted. Schedule is subject to change.