United States Air Force Band

Though founded more than seven decades ago, the United States Air Force Band remains the most recently established among the military ensembles stationed in Washington, D.C. Over the years it has produced an extensive catalog of recordings, appeared often on both radio and television, and presented innumerable performances across the United States and overseas.

The ensemble was officially constituted on 24 September 1941 under the leadership of Alf Heiberg, who served as its first commander and conductor. Beginning with only four musicians, the group expanded to forty-eight members within twelve months and continued to refine its technical standards. In 1943 George S. Howard assumed Heiberg’s dual role.

Under Howard’s direction the band undertook its inaugural extended tour, visiting six Canadian cities in 1944; after the war he organized an auxiliary symphony orchestra, helped launch the weekly broadcast series The Air Force Hour, and enlarged the organization’s complement to a one-hundred-piece marching band, an eighty-five-piece concert ensemble, and a ninety-piece symphony orchestra, along with a twenty-five-voice glee club and several smaller specialized units. European tours in the early and middle 1950s proved highly successful, as did subsequent visits to the Far East in 1956–57. Howard also supervised numerous recordings that ranged from Sousa marches and symphonic transcriptions, such as the movement “Goin’ Home” drawn from Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, to an assortment of patriotic works.

Captain Harry Meuser served as conductor from 1963 to 1964 while Lieutenant Shale Tulin held the post of commander. Arnald D. Gabriel succeeded them in 1964 and remained in the combined position of commander and conductor until 1985. During his tenure the band collaborated with guest soloists Melba Moore and Doc Severinsen and was conducted from the podium by Aaron Copland, Henry Mancini, Leroy Anderson, and other prominent composer-conductors. Karen Erler joined the ensemble in 1973 as its first female instrumentalist.

James M. Bankhead replaced Gabriel in 1985 and led the band on its first tour of China two years later. In 1990 Amy R. Mills was named commander and conductor, becoming the first woman to occupy that office; she was followed the next year by Alan L. Bonner, who served from 1991 to 1995. The year 1995 brought three successive leaders—Mark R. Peterson (January–May), Keith R. Lance (May–September), and Lowell E. Graham (1995–2002)—before Dennis M. Layendecker assumed the dual post in 2002. The United States Air Force Band continues to record regularly and to perform throughout the United States and abroad.