“The President’s Own” United States Marine Band will continue its 2026 concert season with a program celebrating the spirit, imagination and perseverance that have shaped the American experience. Conducted by Marine Band Director Lt. Col. Ryan Nowlin, “American Dreams” features a rich tapestry of stories from composers such as Peter Boyer, George Gershwin, John Williams and John Philip Sousa; the 17th Director of the Marine Band. 

Program

The concert will take place at 2 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026 at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center on the campus of Northern Virginia Community College Alexandria. The performance is free and open to the public; no tickets required. 

The concert will feature Peter Boyer’s Ellis Island: The Dream of America, presented in a new arrangement for wind ensemble. Premiered in 2002 and later nominated for Best Classical Contemporary Composition at the 48th annual Grammy Awards, the work interweaves the musical arrangement with spoken first-person accounts of seven immigrants who entered the United States through Ellis Island between 1910 and 1940. These stories were pulled from the Ellis Island Oral History Project and will be performed by Marine Band vocalists, Master Gunnery Sgt. Kevin Bennear and Staff Sgt. Hannah Davis. The work is illustrated by projected images detailing the history of those who have passed through the island in an effort to live the “American Dream.” 

Boyer wrote the following about his work: 

Ellis Island: The Dream of America was born out of my fascination with the relationship between history and music. I’m drawn to good stories, and my fascination with the story of the Titanic led me to choose that as the subject of an early orchestral work. More specifically, the plight of that vessel’s third-class passengers—humble European immigrants bound for America—led me to think more broadly about early twentieth-century American immigration. 

Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty are icons of immense significance in the history of American immigration. During the years of its operation, from 1892 to 1954, over 70% of all immigrants to the United States passed through Ellis Island, and now more than 40% of the U.S. population can trace their roots to an ancestor who came through there. 

I knew that I wanted to combine spoken word with the orchestra, and when I began my research, I learned of the existence of the Ellis Island Oral History Project: a collection of nearly 2000 interviews with immigrants who were processed there. Upon discovering this wonderful resource, I knew I had found the basis for the work’s text: real words of real people telling their own stories. 

The decision to use texts from the Ellis Island Oral History Project meant that the work would require actors, and it’s an important distinction that they are not “narrators” or “speakers,” but actors. They deliver their monologues in the first person. The use of actors and, in live performance, projected images with the orchestra makes Ellis Island: The Dream of America a hybrid work that is closer to a theater piece than a pure concert work, though it is intended to be performed in the concert hall. 

The orchestral music in Ellis Island: The Dream of America is continuous, framing, commenting on and amplifying the spoken words. Following a six-minute orchestral prologue, the work’s structure alternates the individual immigrants’ stories with orchestral interludes. In general, during the actors’ monologues in which the immigrants’ stories are told, the orchestra plays a supporting role, employing a more sparse orchestration and texture so as not to overpower the speaking voice. During the interludes, the orchestra assumes the primary role, and accordingly “speaks up” with fuller orchestration. The prologue introduces much of the work’s principal thematic material. It is in two sections, slow and fast. In the first section, the work’s main theme, simple and somewhat folk-like in character, is introduced by a solo trumpet, then taken up by the strings and developed. The second section is quick and vigorous, and introduces a fast-moving theme in the trumpets, with pulsating accompaniment in the whole orchestra, which I think of as “traveling music.” These themes recur in many guises throughout the entire piece. 

In live performances of Ellis Island: The Dream of America, there is a visual component which accompanies the music during the Prologue and Epilogue. This consists of images from the archive of historic photographs housed at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum Library. Many of these come from the collection of Augustus Sherman, a longtime Ellis Island employee who took a number of poignant and historically important photographs of immigrants. These immigrants’ faces seem to tell their own stories, and it is little wonder that copies of many of these photographs are displayed prominently in the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. 

The transcription of Ellis Island: The Dream of America for concert band/wind ensemble was championed by Russel Mikkelson of Ohio State University. I am grateful to him for organizing a consortium of ensembles to jointly commission this transcription, and for conducting the première of this version with the Ohio State Wind Symphony in April 2024. My great appreciation also goes to Jay Bocook, whose expertise and experience made the transcription of this major work successful. It is meaningful for me that the U.S. Marine Band, as a distinguished member of the consortium for the transcription of Ellis Island, performs it in the year of “America 250” celebrations.  

The concert will also include John Philip Sousa’s “Hands Across the Sea,” John Williams’ Liberty Fanfare and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, featuring Marine Band pianist Master Gunnery Sgt. Russell Wilson. 

Together, these four pieces will provide a concert experience that is reflective and celebratory of the many voices which shape American music. From Sousa’s up-tempo march to the human narratives of Ellis Island, this concert invites audiences to embark on the journey that is the story of America.