Lenawee County marching bands to be featured at Adrian College

The Daily Telegram
·2 min read

ADRIAN — A whole lot of toes will be tapping to the tunes of 11 local high school and two college bands during the 76th Lenawee County Band Directors Association Marching Band Exhibition at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 3, in Docking Stadium at Adrian College.

Cost of the event is $5 per person or $10 per family. Tickets will be available at the gates, starting at 6 p.m. The event is expected to last about three hours.

Adrian College's Marching Band and director, Ryan Cupp (left), participate in the Bulldogs' homecoming parade Sept. 16, 2023, along Madison Street.
Adrian College's Marching Band and director, Ryan Cupp (left), participate in the Bulldogs' homecoming parade Sept. 16, 2023, along Madison Street.

“This is a big event for our performing arts department,” Adrian College Marching Band Director Ryan Cupp said in a news release. “We are making sure the highschoolers who come here have an amazing experience. … We’ll have students, parents, and community members there. This performance usually brings in a lot of folks from the community.”

High school marching bands from Addison, Adrian, Britton Deerfield, Clinton, Hudson, Madison, Morenci, Onsted, Sand Creek and Tecumseh will be featured.

The Adrian College and Siena Heights University marching bands will combine and open the event with the national anthem. They will also perform individually.

“This has always been a showcase of the musical marching arts and a celebration of what we do,” Cupp said. “There’s no competition, there’s no first place or second place. It’s about everyone enjoying the fact we have this diverse art form that performs in so many different ways.”

Adrian College’s marching band will perform songs from the 1970s and ’80s, featuring Abba, Elton John, Bon Jovi and Styx.

“We’ve been working hard to make sure the songs we’re going to be showing off for the event are razor sharp,” Cupp said.

This is Cupp’s third year as the AC band director, and he has been working hard to get the program back to the size of pre-pandemic years.

“It’s a process to get the numbers back up,” Cupp said. “But what we’ve been doing is trying to play super high-quality music that gets a lot of people’s attention and increasing our footprint on social media by sending out us performing clips of our songs. We’ve also been doing exhibition performances.”

Cupp suggests that any high school student impressed and inspired by Adrian College’s Marching Band reach out to him for a visit.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Lenawee County marching bands to be featured at Adrian College