By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
When Lt Col. Ryan Nowlin steps up on the podium as newly appointed director of the U.S. Marine Band, he will be surrounded by reminders of his roots at BGSU.
A BGSU graduate, Nowlin will take the baton from Col. Jason Fettig today (Wednesday Dec. 20) at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic concert in Chicago today. As the 29th director, he will join a lineage going back to the earliest days of the Republic. It was Thomas Jefferson who first called the band “The President’s Own.” That lineage includes the bandmaster of all bandmasters John Philip Sousa.
“I consider myself as a steward of this place,” Nowlin said in a recent telephone interview from his office in Washington D.C. “I have to take care of it and its people as long as it’s entrusted to me. I have vision for what the Marine Band means to all Americans – music enthusiasts, and veterans and students and teachers, patrons, and future patrons of the arts, Gold Star Families and different administrations and different commandants. The Marine Band has to play everything, everywhere from the Stranahan to Arlington National Cemetery. The Marine Band has a role and responsibility to make sure it meets its obligations to all those.”
Nowlin doesn’t underestimate the daunting nature of the job he’s taking on. “I anticipate the cloak is going to be very heavy.”
As the 29th director he’s joining a line that goes back in history through 46 presidents. “It’s an unbroken lineage,” Nowlin said “That’s what I love about this place. It’s living history because our folks have played with folks who played for Sousa who played with folks who played for Adamses. This music developed in our country and gets passed down from generation to generation within our organization. … It’s tied, unbroken, to our country’s development.”
Today before the Marine Band takes the stage, Nowlin will guest conduct the Wheaton Municipal Band, directed by his former BGSU band director and teacher Bruce Moss.
Moss has conducted the Wheaton concert band for 44 years starting before his 30-year tenure at BGSU. He was a 26-year-old high school band director when “on a fluke” caused by the sudden departure of the previous director he was hired to fill the vacancy. “ I tell you they were taking a chance on me,” he said. “I was wet behind the ears.”
This was decades before Nowlin, a graduate of North Royalton High School, arrived on campus where earned his bachelor’s degree in music education in 2000 and a master’s degree in music education and conducting in 2004.
(Photo provided)
Nowlin said that BGSU provided him the range of experiences that helped him as he moved from high school band director to the director of the Marine Band.
He studied conducting with Moss and performed in his bands. He also performed in the Bowling Green Philharmonia directed by Emily Freeman Brown and sang in the men’s chorus directed by R.D. Mathey.
“The diverse offerings allowed me to be curious and to grow,” Nowlin said. This involved working with a diverse cast of musicians playing a variety of music. That synchs with what his duties as Marine Band director will be.
He credits his French horn teacher, the late Herb Spencer, with bringing him to BGSU.
“My horn teacher was very deliberate to get me to engage in a depth of musicality,” Nowlin said. Spencer would tell him: “If you really want to do these things you really have to explore your musicianship to its depth.”
Spencer also had him arranging from the start for the horn choir. That began a continuing connection as an arranger and composer for Falcon musical ensembles. His Fanfare for the Centennial opens BGSU graduation ceremonies. His most recent contribution was a new fanfare for the Falcon Marching Band to honor the 100th anniversary of the bands at BGSU.
Nowlin was recently awarded an honorary doctorate by his alma mater.
His arranging skills are what brought him to the Marine Band. He was director of bands at Brecksville-Broadview Heights City School District when the job of staff arranger for the Marine bands opened up. He applied.
Moss recalls that the then director of the Marine Band Col. Mike Colburn was a guest of the Wheaton band at the end of the hiring process, and asked Moss about Nowlin. “There’s no way you will be disappointed,” Moss told him.
Moss said he remembers when Nowlin was a student. “I knew he was going places.”
Now Nowlin’s path crosses again with the Wheaton band and Moss as he ascends to the pinnacle of the band world. It was coincidence that the Marine Band and the Wheaton band were scheduled to both perform at the Midwest Clinic.
“This is a real high-pressure gig because people from around the world come to the conference,” Moss said. The conference draws 18,000 attendees from around the world. “It’s huge deal just to get accepted.”
Nowlin noted that bands can only perform every five years. This is the third time the Wheaton Municipal Band, conducted byMoss, has appeared.
Moss recalls that when he first took over as conductor, he expected he’d stay for a few years. “It was a good summer job.” But the band steadily improved. It was featured in the PBS American Experience documentary “If You Knew Sousa.”
The professional adult community band draws capacity crowds of 3,000 to its summer concerts in downtown Wheaton. Members audition to join. Many are music educators, but there’s also a cake designer, and top undergraduate students.
The 93-year-old ensemble is the “crown jewel” of Wheaton, Moss said, and is supported by a city band tax as well as a friends group.
The Midwest Clinic always features one of the miliary bands based nation’s capital. With the Marine Band performing it was natural for Moss to invite Nowlin to conduct a piece. The Marine Band’s announcer and vocalist Master Gunnery Sgt. Kevin Bennear also will join the Wheaton band for a set of Irish songs.
A concerto for two trumpets will feature , John Hagstrom, a former student from Moss’s days as band director at York Community High School in Illinois. Hagstrom will perform the piece with his Chicago Symphony section mate Estaban Batalián.
Nowlin said the change of commands in the Marine Band usually occurs in summer, but Fettig is assuming his duties as director of bands at the University of Michigan in January, so the change will happen at the clinic.
Fettig will conduct the first half of the concert. Then the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps General Eric M. Smith will preside over the band’s change of command.
Nowlin’s directorship will begin with his conducting the second half.
The pieces were selected, he said, with the flow of the overall program in mind, but also some personal considerations.
It will open with “The Carnival Overture,” a staple from Sousa’s time with the band, but newly rearranged. And, of course, the band will play Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” in a new setting, and will end with “The Marine Hymn,” arranged by Sammy Nestico, who was first with the Airmen of Note, then the Marine Band, before heading to Hollywood where, among film, TV, and other assignments, he wrote extensively for the Count Basie Orchestra.
The band will perform “Let Freedom Ring,” a piece Nowlin composed as the last step in his audition for the band. The audition had come down to Nowlin and another candidate who was already a military musician.
Nowlin was given three days to complete the assignment. He had to state the melody of “My Country Tis of Thee,” and then go from there. This occurred, he noted, in the middle of the high school’s music.
The assignment completed, he traveled to Washington where the Marine Band played it. He secured the job. The piece, unchanged, remains in the band’s repertoire, Nowlin conducted it when he returned to Bowling Green in 2017 to help the Bowling Green Area Community Band celebrate its 10th anniversary. He started as an arranger, before becoming an assistant conductor a few years later, and then ascended the line of command to be associate conductor.
The program has yet another BGSU connection. The Marine Band will perform BGSU graduate Jennifer Higdon’s “Aspire” commissioned by the band for its 225th anniversary.
“Aspire” speaks to the mission of the Marine Band “to be the best of what our country needs us to be,” Nowlin said. “All those different people we need to serve, we aspire to be the best for them.”
