We are pleased to announce our “Nominate a Veteran” conductor for this year’s Memorial Day Concert:

David Eelman, nominated by his friend, Hal Mcintosh, is a retired Army Bandsman who served 20 years in active duty as a tuba player, euphonium player, vocalist, and staff conductor with the 8th Infantry Division Band, 2nd Infantry Division Band, Eighth Army Band, U.S. Army Signal Corps Band, and Fort Jackson’s own 282nd Army Band. He retired in 2006 at the rank of Staff Sergeant.

Mr. Eelman holds a Master of Music degree in Conducting and Church Music from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a Bachelor of Science in Music Education from William Paterson University.

He currently performs with the Lexington County Choral Society, the USC Summer Chorus, the Carolina Wind Symphony, and as a freelance tuba player in the Columbia-Lexington area.

Congratulations, Mr. Eelman! We look forward to having you conduct the PCB at our Memorial Day Concert on May 29th.

It’s nearly time for our season-closing Memorial Day Concert on Monday, May 29. Nominations are still open for conducting the PCB in the playing of Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” on stage at the Koger Center. Be sure to recommend a veteran (no conducting experience required!) before the deadline on Friday, May 19. Click here to nominate someone today!

Please come out and join us as we honor — through music — our country’s fallen soldiers this Memorial Day.

Our band members have jumped back into rehearsals to bring the Columbia area not one but two concerts back-to-back weekends this February!

For our first concert this month, we are pleased and honored to have been invited to perform the finale concert at the South Carolina Music Educators Association’s conference held annually at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. The performance will begin at 2:00 PM on Saturday, February 4, 2017 at the USC Alumni Center. This performance is free and open to the public.

Can’t make it that Saturday? Not to worry! We will perform the same works again the next Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 7:30 PM as part of the USC Band Clinic. This performance brings us back to our “home venue” at the Koger Center for the Arts. This concert is also free and open to the public. The performance is general admission, so plan to arrive early for prime seating!

Both of these performances will feature only four pieces of music, but quality in this case far surpasses quantity! The PCB will open with Overture to “Candide”  by Leonard Bernstein (trans. Grundman), followed by our encore performance of Vaclav Nelhybel’s Trittico. Next up are the six musical portraits that make up Percy Aldridge Grainger’s Lincolnshire Posy. We will close the concert with none other than Russian Christmas Music by Alfred Reed.

First, thank you to all who came to our November concert at the Koger. We know the Tuesday night performance was a change from the norm, and we appreciate everyone who was able to work us into their weekday schedule!

Now our band members are making their way to Chicago for the 70th Annual Midwest Clinic — during a pretty major cold snap, even for the Windy City! (Please keep us in your thoughts during these wintry travels.)

Our Thursday performance at this international band and orchestra conference will feature our own conductor, Scott Weiss, along with multiple guest conductors and a guest soloist:

• Dai Zhonghui – Director of Wind Orchestra, Central Conservatory of Music
• Paul W. Popeil – Director of Bands, University of Kansas
• Cormac Cannon – Associate Director of Bands, University of South Carolina
• Scott A. Jones – Associate Director of Bands, The Ohio State University
• Rex Richardson – Professor of Trumpet and Jazz Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University

Of our concert selections, we will be performing two Jim Stephenson works (Concerto No. 2 for Trumpet “Rextreme”, mvt. 3, composed for soloist Rex Richardson; and there are no words, a tribute to the 9 victims of the Emanuel AME shooting in Charleston, SC), a work composed by our own Joshual Hinkel (Galactic Mission, a fun piece of literature  evoking the excitement of outer space travel), and a world premier piece by Joel Puckett (My Eyes are Full of Shadow “describes looking back on a moment of pain in the past and an inability—an unwillingness?—to move beyond it.”)

Here’s hoping that if you are in Chicago for the Midwest Clinic that you will join us Thursday at 1:30 PM for what is sure to be a performance to remember!