Staff Excellence: Purdue Bands & Orchestras

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue Bands & Orchestras has been providing the soundtrack to the Purdue experience for the past 139 years, whether it’s the “All-American” Marching Band (AAMB) parading down campus streets during homecoming, the Boiler Brass hyping up a Mackey Arena crowd or the Purdue Jazz Band enchanting an audience at Loeb Playhouse.

None of those uniquely Purdue performances could happen without the faculty, administrative staff, auxiliary coaches and applied music instructors who support the department’s 1,350 students and its 30-plus ensembles. But regardless of their roles, the goal of these 18 faculty and staff members extends beyond entertaining crowds.

As proponents for student success and belonging, they help provide the space, time and structure necessary for Boilermakers to pursue their passion for music while earning a degree.

“We consider our department to be more about the process than the performance,” says Jay Gephart, the Dr. Al G. Wright Chair of Purdue University Bands and Orchestras and conductor of the Purdue Wind Ensemble. “And we’re all about teaching music and teaching performance practice, but at the same time, we are trying to develop in our students a lifelong desire to participate in music, so that when they go out into their respective communities, they can be representatives for the arts and for music wherever they go.”

Conducting Purdue Bands & Orchestras’ ensembles falls to the faculty members, which include two full professors, two associate professors and four clinical professors — all of whom are world-class musicians and accomplished educators.

Outside of leading course sections, rehearsals and performances, faculty members also advise the Purdue chapters of the coed honorary band fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi, and the coed honorary sorority, Tau Beta Sigma, and coordinate their ensembles’ national and international travel. That includes organizing a concert in Indianapolis featuring the Purdue Philharmonic Orchestra and a local high school orchestra, arranging the AAMB’s participation in Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Ireland, and leading the Purdue Jazz Band and Wind Ensemble to Spain for a weeklong performance tour through Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona.

But above all, their role is to meet students wherever they are as performers, whether they’re coming in as advanced musicians or regular-section high school band members. And even without a traditional school of music, Purdue Bands & Orchestras continues to attract and retain internationally recognized faculty members who contribute to the department’s legacy of stability and success.

“I was the fifth director in our history of the AAMB,” Gephart says. “Matt Conaway is the sixth. We have 139 years of history in our department. So, there’s something to be said about the faculty who come to Purdue and stay at Purdue, and I think that speaks volumes about what we offer at Purdue and the commitment our faculty have to teaching students.”

Purdue Bands & Orchestras’ skilled staff members are equally committed to preserving and promoting that history of excellence. These employees provide steady support to the growing department by organizing events and outreach activities, giving recruitment presentations to high school students across the country, producing digital and print media, and overseeing the department’s finances.

Some staff members bring a unique perspective to the team as Purdue Bands & Orchestras alumni, drawing upon institutional knowledge to advise the department’s student volunteer management teams. These student groups are a force of their own, charged with tasks like distributing and managing uniforms and instruments, cataloging and digitizing paper music, assisting with alumni relations, and recording concerts and events.

Maintaining the department’s activities is a team effort, and every person is pivotal in ushering Purdue Bands & Orchestras through its busiest seasons, which often blend into one another.

“We have pep bands performing for volleyball and football, and eventually, with men’s and women’s basketball, we will have four pep bands up and running simultaneously,” Gephart says. “It’s a pretty busy time, but during second semester, our students are involved in eight concert bands, four orchestras and seven jazz ensembles. So, the department is very active throughout the year.”

Their hard work is evident. AAMB auxiliary units — managed by three coaches — routinely receive national praise. Most recently, the Purdue Twirling team was crowned 2026 national champions at the National Baton Twirling Association’s annual America’s Youth on Parade event, with Golden Girl Ireland Jones taking home two solo national titles.

Though Purdue Bands & Orchestras’ excellence is seen and heard in stunning performances across campus and around the globe, it’s fostered in Hagle Hall, where faculty and staff are constantly creating innovative learning experiences and opportunities to shape the next generation of musicians and community leaders.

Just like a band or orchestra becomes better with practice, these employees are fine-tuning their skills each day as they lead one of the university’s most iconic institutions into the future.

“I’m learning things from my faculty and staff every semester, and I think that’s probably what I enjoy most about working alongside them,” Gephart says. “They challenge me to be a better conductor and a better musician because of their level of excellence. They’re just all terrific.”

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a research institution ranked among the top 10 public universities in the United States. More than 111,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. As a land-grant university committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free.