TCU percussion concert blends students, alumni, steel band, and drumline

TCU turned one Sunday night into a full percussion family reunion, pairing current students, graduate players, alumni, steel band and drumline in a single program at Van Cliburn Concert Hall in the Boschini Music Center. The setup made the concert feel less like a recital and more like a snapshot of the entire pipeline, from first chair on campus to alumni who have carried TCU’s percussion tradition into teaching, composing and performing careers.

The concert was set for Sunday, April 26, 2026, at 5:30 p.m., with a reception following at 7:00 p.m. inside the 715-seat hall named for Fort Worth legend Van Cliburn. TCU describes the Boschini Music Center as the home of state-of-the-art rehearsal and learning spaces that support the university’s band, orchestra and percussion programs, and that infrastructure showed up in the way the evening was built: multiple ensembles, multiple directors and a broad range of repertoire instead of one straight-through set.

Brian A. West, TCU’s professor and coordinator of percussion, led the program alongside Jeffrey S. Hodge and Joe Donohue. The student side included TCU Percussion Orchestra II playing Till the Stars Come Down by Nathan Daughtrey, the TCU Percussion Ensemble performing Persephone, and the graduate percussion ensemble presenting States Medley with Logan Scott as soloist. The main percussion orchestra closed its portion with Totality by Hezan Daroona, underscoring how much of the night was about current players taking the stage in different combinations.

The alumni sections expanded the scope even further. TCU Alumni Percussion Orchestra performed Volemos, Adagio from Symphony No. 3 and Thundersnow. TCU Alumni Steel Band brought Jump in the Line and Smooth / Oye Como Va, while TCU Alumni Drumline hit Shuffle #3, Super Fly, Funky Frog and the Horned Frog Cadence. The finale brought those worlds together again, as the combined alumni percussion ensemble, steel band and drumline closed with Victory Lap, a world premiere.

That alumni turnout fits the way TCU describes its percussion division, where many graduates become educators at the elementary, middle school, high school and collegiate levels, and many go on to become published composers. In other words, the concert was built around a community that keeps circling back on itself. TCU says its percussion ensembles have been featured seven times over the past 20 years through PASIC-related selection, and the Percussion Orchestra has won ensemble competitions in 2005, 2008, 2011, 2015, 2019, 2022 and 2025. The drumline’s own PAS marching percussion festival wins add another layer of institutional muscle to the evening.

For a program in a school that hosts more than 300 musical events each year, this one stood out because it connected generations in real time. Current students had the platform, alumni had the return invitation, and the audience got the rare view of a percussion community playing not just for applause, but for continuity.