The Fighting Scots Marching Band makes it way down Broadway during the Warren County Prime Beef Festival Parade earlier this month. The band's numbers are up this year, which is also the case for the college's Chorale and Wind Ensemble
MONMOUTH, ILLINOIS (September 8, 2025) — On the first Wednesday of September, a row of folding chairs sat empty for several hours on the boulevard in front of Monmouth College's Dahl Chapel and Auditorium, placed there very early in the day by a group staking their claim to prime seating for that afternoon's Warren County Prime Beef Festival Parade.
In a few months, Dahl seating will again be in high demand, as the college's music department offers its annual "Christmas at Monmouth" concert, which music professor Tim Pahel called "by far our best-attended concert of the year."
There's even the potential for standing-room-only attendance for the December 6 event, as each of Monmouth's musical ensembles have increased in size from a year ago.
"Many of the people who attend are family members of our performers," said Pahel, "and our ensembles are bigger this year."
"Christmas at Monmouth" will conclude the music events for the fall semester but, in the meantime, there will be plenty of other opportunities to hear the voices and instruments of Monmouth students.
With the festival parade in the rearview, the next opportunity to hear the Fighting Scots Marching Band — as well as the Monmouth College Pipe Band — will be at the football team's home opener on September 13.
"We're going to have a new show at every game this year," said director Eli Kelly, whose band has grown to sixty members thanks to an influx of twenty freshmen. "For the first game, we'll be doing 'Heartache Tonight' by the Eagles, 'Beth/Detroit Rock City' by Kiss, and 'Hit Me with Your Best Shot' by Pat Benatar. The kids really like these tunes. Come out and have fun with us."
Kelly's students are so dedicated to their craft that a dozen of them completed their march in the festival parade, then hurried back to the start to march again with the Grand Alumni Band.
"They definitely got their steps in that day," said Kelly, whose band members will also play at a volleyball game or two during the fall, leading into their more regular appearances at Fighting Scots basketball games.
Concert dates
Many of Kelly's students are also part of the rise in Wind Ensemble participation. Music professor Justin Swearinger's group is now at 52 members. Along with Pahel's vocal groups, the Wind Ensemble will make its début at a short Family Weekend concert at 7:30 PM, September 13, in the Kasch Performance Hall of Dahl Chapel.
The Wind Ensemble's major concert of the fall will be held at 7:30PM, October 24. Two of the major selections will be "Unbroken," which Swearinger said explores "mental health struggles and how families navigate that," and a work by Illinois composer Roy Magnuson. With its proximity to Halloween, the concert will also feature an HP Lovecraft-inspired work.
Pahel directs the 47-member Monmouth Chorale — featuring fifteen new voices — and Chamber Choir, while Kaitlyn McCullough leads the Concert Choir. All three groups will sing at 7:30PM, October 4, in their main event of the fall.
"There's really no theme," said Pahel of the concert. "There's so much variety in choral music out there, and so much we'd like to explore, so we don't want to get pinned down to just one thing. The variety is more appealing. There will be a spiritual and a Slovenian song, and also a selection inspired by a Langston Hughes poem."
The Monmouth Civic Orchestra, directed by faculty member Rich Cangro, will present its fall concert at 3PM, November 2, and the Jazz Band, under the director of Steve Jackson, will perform at 7:30PM, November 14.
Other events this fall
Riyad Nicolas, the London-based husband of Monmouth graduate and world-renowned violinist Mariela Shaker ('15), will present a piano recital at 7:30PM, October 22. A few days prior, Shaker will be honored with the college's Young Alumnus Award during Homecoming weekend.
The college will host an Illinois Music Education Association audition day on September 23 as local high-school students prepare to compete for coveted seats in the all-district and all-state bands. There will be no concluding concert for that event, but there will be for the Honor Band that Monmouth hosts on October 30. The ILMEA event has more than doubled from the eighty students who participated in the inaugural audition day three years ago, with Pahel expecting as many as 200 students for this year's event.
Are you looking for one more reason that seats in Dahl Chapel will be in high demand this semester?
"We passed out 750 flyers at the parade with all the dates for the year for music, art, and theatre," said Pahel.
The word is out, so if you can, come early for all of Monmouth's music events this fall, just to be safe.
