Former Nebraska Cornhusker band leader to direct MSU bands

Contact: Joe Farris

A former director of the University of Nebraska marching band and the Florida State University basketball pep band will lead the Famous Maroon Band at Mississippi State University.

Rod M. Chesnutt, currently director of bands at State University of West Georgia in Carrollton, will pick up the baton of the 300-plus member MSU marching band on July 1, pending approval by the state College Board.

Chesnutt has had responsibility for all bands, including concert wind ensembles, for the past year at West Georgia. As assistant director of bands at the University of Nebraska for three years before that, he served as director of the Cornhusker Marching Band while assisting with other ensembles.

He led the Cornhusker band in appearances at the Orange Bowl in 1997 and 1998, the Fiesta Bowl in 1996, and the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland, in 1996.

Chesnutt was director and arranger for the Chiefly Brass basketball pep band and worked with the marching and concert bands as a graduate assistant at Florida State, where he earned a doctorate in music education in 1995.

He has been a pep band consultant for the University of Georgia, University of Miami, Syracuse University, and Brigham Young University, among others. He has produced more than 70 commissioned arrangements for various university marching bands as well as several for concert ensembles.

Chesnutt earned a bachelor's degree in music education at Tennessee Tech in 1981 and a master's degree in trombone performance at Arkansas State in 1983.

He was instrumental music coordinator in the Blytheville, Ark., public schools for five years and director of bands in the Trumann, Ark., public schools for four years before that. He has prepared band drill designs and choreography or appeared as a guest clinician in high schools in Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and the Midwest.

"Dr. Chesnutt understands the importance of working with high school band directors throughout the state and he knows the value of the marching band as a recruiting tool for the university," said search committee chair Gloria Correro, associate dean of education.

Correro said the national search attracted more than 40 candidates, including several affiliated with "very significant band programs from across the country."

Chesnutt will succeed Kent Sills, longtime director of the MSU band who recently retired after being on medical leave of absence for two years, and interim director Elva Kay Lance, who is assistant director of bands.

"The university is indebted to Ms. Lance for the outstanding job she has done as interim director for the past two seasons," Correro said.