Bucknell Symphonic Band Honors Director Kenny With Final Concert, Alumni Spanning Seven Decades

Professor William Emmett Kenny, who has directed Bucknell University's Symphonic Band since 1990, will conduct his final concert in that role this Sunday, drawing alumni from seven decades of the program back to the Weis Center stage alongside today's students.

The April 12 performance begins at 2:30 p.m. in the Weis Center for the Performing Arts on Bucknell's Lewisburg campus and is free to the public. Graduates spanning seven distinct decades, some from eras of the Symphonic Band that predate Kenny's arrival in Lewisburg, will share the stage with current student musicians. University officials have described the event as both a formal tribute and a community celebration marking a transition in the program's leadership.

Kenny's 36-year tenure at Bucknell stands as one of the more durable faculty commitments in the university's music department. He arrived with a B.S. in Music Education from Oregon State University and later earned an Ed.D. in Music Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, eventually rising to Professor of Music and serving a term as Associate Dean of Faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences. The university recognized his influence in 2022 with the Class of 1956 Lectureship Award for Inspirational Teaching, one of its most prominent faculty honors.

His reach extends well beyond Bucknell's rehearsal rooms. Kenny served approximately 30 years as principal horn of the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra, running that performing commitment in parallel with his teaching career. He is a member of the Commonwealth Brass Quintet, founded the Penn Central Wind Band, and continues performing with the Orchestra of the Susquehanna Valley. In summer 2024, the Williamsport Symphony Orchestra named him director of its Billtown Brass Band, where he succeeded founding director Rick Coulter, who had led the ensemble for 24 years.

The Symphonic Band rehearses Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:15 p.m. and performs at least twice per semester, drawing from what Bucknell describes as "the most exciting and challenging band- and wind-ensemble repertoire available." Sunday's program, with its unusual depth of multi-generational players on a single stage, is expected to include both standard band literature and collaborative pieces suited to the scale of the reunion.

The seven-decade alumni roster is itself a data point on what sustained faculty tenure means to a music program. Graduates who sat in Kenny's first rehearsals in the early 1990s are now in their mid-50s. That continuity raises the broader question of how Bucknell and regional schools build the institutional structures, from endowments to scheduling to faculty retention, that allow a program to accumulate that kind of depth in the first place.

Kenny's new Billtown Brass directorship, now in its second year, signals that his departure from Bucknell's podium marks a transition, not a conclusion.