Skilled composers among participants in Olympic Peninsula Brass Winds Festival

Published 4:30 am Wednesday, July 22, 2026

The community is invited to attend the inaugural Olympic Peninsula Brass & Winds Festival to take place Friday and Saturday in Sequim. The free event is a partnership between Sequim City Band and the Association of Concert Bands (ACB). Participating ensembles were selected through an audition process.

Festival performances will take place at two venues. Friday’s event will take place at 7 Cedars Hotel & Casino, 270756 U.S. Highway 101, starting at 7 p.m., and Saturday’s performances will be at the James Center for the Performing Arts, 506 N. Blake Ave., starting at 3:30 p.m. Free parking is available at both locations.

The festival is part of the ACB Pacific Northwest Connects! conference, a regional gathering designed to strengthen and celebrate community bands. Approximately 125 musicians, conductors, band directors, and administrators from across the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, as well as from as far away as Iowa and Texas, are expected to attend.

Tyler Benedict, Sequim City Band’s director, said that opportunities for musicians and directors from multiple organizations to come together for education and collaboration are “quite rare.”

“This event is a milestone for both the Sequim City Band and the Olympic Peninsula,” he wrote in an email.

Several composers of concert band music will join the event for the reading session and clinics, according to Sequim City Band’s Vicky Blakesley. They include:

• Karl Bach (Washington) — retired senior chief musician in the US Navy and founder of the Navy’s choral group ‘The Sea Chanters’; retired conductor of the Port Townsend Summer Band.

• Erin Keeton-Howard (Washington) — composer for concert band, brass band, jazz band, and chamber music ensembles. Currently serves as director of Upper School Bands at The Northwest School in Seattle and is co-founder/director of Formation Wind Band.

• Ron Jones (Washington) — composer who owns and works for SkyMuse Studios, a recording and post-production facility. Prior to relocating to the Pacific Northwest to focus on composing concert music he was composing/arranging music for film and television in the Los Angeles area. He is known for scoring the television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Duck Tales,” “Family Guy,” and “American Dad!”

• John Wasson (Texas) — a composer based in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area who is known for writing for a wide range of ensembles (concert band, orchestra, jazz groups) and orchestrating television and film (best known for “Caravan” from the film “Whiplash”). In the live performance world, he is best known for adapting the movie scores of “Gladiator,” “Spider-Man,” and “Moana.”

Olympic Peninsula Brass & Winds Festival schedule

Friday, July 24

7 Cedars Hotel & Casino

270756 U.S. Highway 101, Sequim

7 p.m. — Saxologists

7:30 p.m. — Port Townsend Summer Band

Saturday, July 25

James Center for the Performing Arts

506 N. Blake Ave., Sequim

3:30 p.m. — Sequim City Band

4:30 p.m. — Hometown Band

5:30 p.m. — Seattle Wind Symphony

6:30 p.m. — Washington Wind Symphony

7:30 p.m. — Rancho Cordova River City Concert Band