Outstanding music teachers have been coming to Ashland, Ore., for 28 years for the American Band College summer directors training. Each year they form a band that offers a public concert at the Ashland High School stadium that accompanies the city’s Fourth of July fireworks show.
Southern Oregon band director Max McKee started the program in 1989 and began offering master’s degrees in 1992. The program began with 13 students and today attracts school and college band directors from around the world. Sam Houston University took over granting the degrees in 2010, but the training takes place in Ashland. In 2014, 220 students came from 40 states and five foreign countries.
Top directors of military and university bands teach the two-week program in Ashland. After the first week, the students perform at a concert at the Medford Craterian Theater. Guest artists have performed over the years with the band, including the Canadian Brass and Doc Severinsen, pop and jazz trumpeter best known for leading the NBC Orchestra on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.
Besides the evening concert in Ashland, the band will perform aboard an 18-wheeler flatbed truck in the city’s traditional Fourth of July parade.
Sources: “Our History." American Band College. Sam Houston University, Sept. 2014. Web. 16 June 2016.
