The biennial event has taken place in different locations all over the globe for the past 40 years. This year, the WASBE Conference will take place on Slavonic Island in the Žofín Palace on the Vltava River. Elite wind ensembles from Spain, Germany, South Korea, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Czech Republic and the United States have been invited to perform.

The University of Louisville Wind Ensemble will perform on the final day of the conference, Saturday, July 23, performing a program that will highlight the conference theme celebrating the life and work of Grawemeyer Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer .

Husa’s “Concertino for Piano and Wind Ensemble” will feature UofL faculty artist Anna Petrova as soloist. The wind ensemble also will perform Husa’s symphonic work, “Cheetah,” which was commissioned by the UofL Division of Music Theory and Composition for the wind ensemble. It was Husa’s final work composed for the wind band medium; he died in 2016. Amy Acklin, UofL associate director of bands, will present an accompanying lecture on “Cheetah.”

As a thank you to donors and friends, the wind ensemble also will perform the Husa compositions, along with others, in a send-off concert in Comstock Hall on UofL’s Belknap Campus on July 18 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.

Director of Bands Frederick Speck conducts the UofL Wind Ensemble, consisting of approximately 46 student musicians.

Beckham will take over for Band Director Amy Acklin for “Marching Together,” the band’s now-yearly event to spotlight children who are patients of UofL Pediatrics physicians at Norton Children’s Hospital.

Beckham has leukemia and currently has weekly chemotherapy treatment. But the illness hasn’t dampened his spirit one bit.

“Beckham just has this energy; we just knew, ‘Oh man, he could handle it Saturday and beyond.’ So we asked him to be the guest band director for me,” .��

“Our ‘drum major in training’ graciously agreed to get the band off the field at halftime and conduct our fight song.”

Acklin added that several of the songs performed by the band at Saturday’s performance were selected by patients at Norton Children’s.

The Marching Together event highlights UofL’s annual (and largest) student fundraiser, . Organized and conducted entirely by UofL students, raiseRED consists of a week’s worth of events leading up to an 18-hour dance marathon that supports pediatric cancer research at UofL and Norton Children’s.

Marching band members support raiseRED each year, and the band is sponsoring the Marching Together event to bring attention and encourage donations to raiseRED which will be held Feb. 22-27, 2022.

Last year, raiseRED brought in more than $690,000. Due to COVID-19, the event was not held in its traditional format, but rather outside at Cardinal Stadium. The organization plans to revisit its normal format this year and the fundraising goal is $3 million. One-hundred percent of the funds raised go to UofL’s Pediatric Division of Hematology and Oncology and to Norton Children’s Cancer Institute.

Beckham, however, is just interested in getting some practice time in. Earlier this week, he was getting baton handling pointers from feature twirler Morgan Proctor and rehearsing his lines:

“C – A – R – D – S – Go – Cards!”

UofL takes on Clemson Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Cardinal Stadium. To donate to raiseRED, go to the