When a band director job was listed at UW–Madison for the first time in 50 years, everybody in the profession knew about the opening. And yet the man who would eventually get the job wasn’t planning to apply.
“It’s not that I didn’t know the job was open — I absolutely knew it was open,” says Corey Pompey, the associate director of bands and an associate teaching professor in the Mead Witter School of Music. “I also knew that UW–Madison is a good place with a good band and a good program. I knew all of these things; I was just very wary of taking a job when such an admired person was in it for 50 years.”
Plus, he was happy. At the time, he had a band director gig at the University of Nevada, Reno, and he was planning to stay there for a good long time.
Then, he received a phone call. It was a recruitment call that probably went out to dozens of band directors around the country, but paired with UW–Madison’s tremendous reputation, it was enough to get him to throw his hat in the ring.
“There’s a big difference between the Mountain West and the Big Ten,” Pompey says with a smile. “But if I had not gotten that phone call, I guarantee you I would not have applied.”
And the rest is history. Quickly embraced as the beloved face of the nearly 300-member marching band, Pompey has now been in the role for five years. He’s the man behind the baton at concerts, sporting events and in the classroom.
Already, his tenure has been dotted with once-in-a-lifetime memories. When thinking about highlights, he listed his first football game, going to the Rose Bowl, finally getting to put on the Varsity Band Spring Concert in 2022 after two years of COVID cancellations and even meeting the late music-making legend Allee Willis (’69) — co-writer for Earth, Wind & Fire songs “September” and “Boogie Wonderland” as well as the theme song for “Friends.”
“Not in my wildest dreams would I have thought I would be sitting across from someone whose music is iconic,” Pompey says. “Every once in a while, I get to meet a really cool person that I only get to meet because I happen to be the director of the UW band, and I don’t take that for granted.”
But for a lot of musicians in Wisconsin, Pompey has become that cool person they’re excited to meet. Caleb Monge is a junior at UW–Madison and the drum major for the band. He remembers how excited he was to meet Pompey at a band clinic the summer before his freshman year. Before that day, he had only seen him in YouTube videos.
The energy and the passion that the students exude when they perform, I think it’s really something.
“When he walks into the room, the first thing you’ll notice is charisma,” Monge says. “Recently, we had a high school band day. We played some songs for them and described what it was like to be in the band, but then Dr. Pompey walked in, and the room went silent. Right away, everyone was super engaged.”
As a student majoring in music education and educational policy studies, Monge sees Pompey as both a mentor and a remarkable example of a leader in the field.
“We have about 300 members, but somehow he makes it feel very personal,” Monge says. “He’s a saxophone player himself, he studied music, is big into marching band, and he was also the drum major during his undergrad experience. So, all those things are great and yes, I can relate to them, but it’s more than that. Day in and day out, it’s how he carries himself, how he addresses the ensemble and how he sees himself as a teacher first, even at the college level, even at this scale.”
Despite the fact that a large part of Pompey’s job is show business — the average Camp Randall crowd was nearly 58,000 last football season — a lot of the hard work he puts in happens behind the scenes. His desk in the Humanities Building is covered with sticky notes listing helpful dates, random thoughts, ideas for shows and important reminders. If you join him on the commute home, you’d likely find the radio flipped to top 40, because he’s trying to keep tabs on the latest music trends. Lately, he’s been enjoying Beyoncé’s entry to country, Cowboy Carter.
“First and foremost, I’m looking for music the crowd might enjoy,” Pompey says. Past performance themes have been around everything from a pop punk medley to Veterans Day music to Taylor Swift. “My hope is that over the course of the season, we will have provided enough variety in the musical selections that people in the audience will be able to hang their hats on something they heard.”
To do this job, Pompey has to wear a lot of hats. Not literally — he skips the traditional marching band headwear — but he’s juggling the teaching, artistic and administrative sides of the role. Picking out the shows tickles the artistic side of his brain, but the planning starts in the spring when he polls band members to get their suggestions.
Once the football season starts, it’s full throttle. Sometimes the band has only a week to learn the music and formations for a show. But when it all comes together on the field, it’s always a special moment for Pompey.
“The energy and the passion that the students exude when they perform, I think it’s really something,” Pompey says. “And if someone has never seen or heard the band before, I’d say, you just have to come to one of our performances and see it for yourself.”
Find dates for upcoming band performances at badgerband.wisc.edu.
