Contact: Paige Watson
STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State’s veteran director of bands is the new president-elect of the prestigious Phi Beta Mu international bandmasters fraternity.
Elva Kaye Lance, an alumna now in her 24th year at the land-grant university, is the eighth director of the 113-year-old Famous Maroon Band.
Phi Beta Mu was established in 1937 at North Texas Agricultural College, now the University of Texas at Arlington. The organization’s 3,000 members are spread among chapters in more than 30 states and three Canadian provinces. Additional information is found at www.phibetamu.org.
Lance was MSU associate bands director for a number of years before being named to the top position in 2002. In addition to leading all aspects of the marching band, she conducts the wind ensemble.
She also teaches methods classes in the music department and assists with student-teacher supervisions. Her nearly four decades of Mississippi music education service includes instrumental teaching at the junior and senior high school levels before coming to MSU.
In 2011, Lance was honored with the Mississippi Bandmaster Association’s Edythe M. McArthur Outstanding Woman Band Director Award. She currently serves as the state chair for the College Band Director’s National Association and the National Band Association. For more, visit www.music.msstate.edu/faculty/bio/elvakayelance.
During Lance’s leadership, MSU’s band program has seen completion of a multi-million dollar rehearsal facility and expansion of the professional staff, along with the current operation of four concert, two pep and one jazz bands, as well as the marching unit that consistently enrolls more than 320 students.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.