Band director Matt Rome and band students find that hearing the Augustana band play is interesting and beneficial.

Augustana University in Illinois has had a band since 1874 and has been touring the country and the world for years. They have been to the United Kingdom, Japan and Italy, amongst other places. Both the Augustana band and the Hays High band played at the concert. According to Rome, they were going on tour and wanted to stop here.

“They found me,” Rome said. “This was a good stopping point for them, so we just made a concert happen.”

Rome said the band wanted to stop here because they wanted to perform and expanding people’s experiences with music.

His only complaint was the concert had to be held on a Wednesday afternoon, as opposed to a more traditional time in the evening.

Rome said having the band perform was beneficial to his current band students.

“The big thing they should take from Augustana is that you don’t need to be a music major to play an instrument in college,” Rome said. “A majority of their members are non-music majors. Students can keep playing and play well.”

Overall, Rome said he really enjoyed the concert.

“My favorite part was to hear a developing band and an established band back-to-back,” Rome said. “It was interesting to hear different levels of musical maturity.”

The students enjoyed the concert as well.

“I thought it was really cool and I thought the epic was really cool because I’ve never heard anyone play for half an hour before,” senior Kirsten Prindle said.

Prindle also liked the different instruments the band used.

“They had a harp player, which is awesome,” Prindle said. “I’ve never heard one in concert before.”

Junior Alex Feyerherm also enjoyed the different instruments incorporated into their performance.

“The percussion effects that they did were cool, like the pipe on the piano,” Feyerherm said. “They made cool sounds.”

For sophomore Gabby Taliaferro, the concert served as an inspiration to keep being involved in band.

“At first, I didn’t think I wanted to do band in college, but after listening to them they inspired me to continue on so I can become better,” Taliaferro said.

18kweisenborn@usd489.com