The Marching Illini are preparing to return to the State Farm Center on Oct. 8 after a decade of absence from the Center’s floor. Their last performance was in 2013.
“The Marching Illini ‘Live in Concert’ will be a culmination of season highlights, traditional favorites and some audience surprises along the way,” said Barry Houser, director of the Marching Illini. “The soundtrack of the Fighting Illini will come inside the fantastic State Farm Center for this spectacular concert of lights, music and true Illini Spirit.”
The Marching Illini was coined as the “world’s greatest band” by John Philip Sousa, songwriter of the U.S. national march song “Stars and Stripes Forever, ” according to the band’s About Us page.
The band has received numerous awards since their conception in 1867, including the Louis Sudler Intercollegiate Marching Band Trophy in 1983, being the second recipient in history of the trophy.
The band has also traveled internationally, with return concerts to Irelandand touching down as the first college band to perform in the U.K.’s London Military Tattoo concert at Wembley Arena in 2001.
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Currently, the Marching Illini is composed of 375 undergraduate and graduate student members, spanning musicians, guards and staff members, with a wide range of majors represented in the band, according to the Marching Illini Website.
“I attended the University of Illinois for graduate studies as one of the first grad students studying instrumental conducting,” Houser said. “The opportunity to come back to Illinois was presented, I … have not looked back since. I get to work with some of the most creative and talented students on the planet.”
Tickets for the concert are open now. A 30-minute preshow is available to purchase as well, with opportunities to interact with and receive photographs from band members included.
