The Symphonic Wind Band will perform Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. in Rodeheaver Auditorium as part of the Homecoming festivities.

One highlight of this year’s concert will be guest alumni trumpet player Daniel Birnschein who will be playing Alexander Arutunian’s Concerto for Trumpet. 

Birnschein has been performing professionally and teaching at Maranatha Baptist University since he graduated from Bob Jones University in 2001.

The concert will feature pieces original to BJU as well as classical wind pieces.

The band will play an overture by James Barnes, a former composition professor at BJU. The First Suite in E Flat by Gustav Holst will be played as well.

“First Suite in E Flat is] one of the great pieces for winds,” Dr. Dan Turner, director of the Symphonic Wind Band and professor in the Division of Music, said.

The second half of the concert will feature a series of “favorites” that were performed when the band toured every other year in various parts of the country.

These pieces are primarily sacred and patriotic in nature, making the last half of the program somewhat more familiar and especially relatable to the alumni who went on tour with the band over the last 35 years.

The Homecoming concert will give alumni who played in the band in years past the opportunity to come back and reestablish connections with former bandmates.

Between 85 and 100 of these alumni will reunite to perform during the concert.

“It’s just a very cool time to get reconnected with people,” Turner said.

Turner has been the director of bands for 34 years, and this concert will be a celebration of his 35th year of service at BJU.

He said he has greatly enjoyed his time serving the University in this capacity. “The band world is a great world,” Turner said.

Turner was recently inducted into the American Bandmasters Association, which recognizes men and women who have demonstrated outstanding work in concert performance.

The organization currently has around 310 members, only three of whom live in South Carolina.

“It’s a huge honor to have been nominated and elected to the membership,” Turner said. “It’s been an amazing thing.”

Turner described  his 35 years serving at BJU.

“The absolute highlight has been a career of collaboration with absolutely the finest Christian musicians in the world,” Turner said.

He said he believes if any faculty in the Division of Music at the University was randomly selected and placed into any other institution in the country, they would be at the very top of those faculties wherever they are.

“To be able to work with that caliber of person day in and day out and to share in their successes is a wonderful thing,” Turner said.

Turner said his colleagues in the Division of Music have greatly enriched his time at the University.

“Because of the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of these people, we love each other and we work together,” Turner said. “Here we are unified.”

While no tickets are required, seating at the concert is first-come, first-served.