Augustana Band Festival

The 67th Annual Augustana Band Festival will take place on Nov. 8-9, 2024. The festival has brought thousands of students from a five-state area to participate in two full days of ensemble and clinic work featuring three separate bands — Gold, Blue and Honor — led by outstanding music educators/directors. Participating students are nominated by their high school directors, and the festival is organized and carried out by an Augustana committee of outstanding student musicians.

The grand finale concert of the festival will be held in the Mary Sommervold Hall of the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls and will feature performances by the Gold, Blue and Honor bands, as well as the Augustana Band.

A dynamic conductor of both wind band and orchestral ensembles, Dr. Leah McGray is the director of the wind orchestra at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Previously, she was the director of instrumental studies for the State University of New York at Geneseo and Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee — conducting orchestra, wind ensemble and teaching classes in conducting and theory. She has been the guest conductor for the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Youth Symphony Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, Penfield Symphony Orchestra and 2023 National Youth Band of Canada. McGray is in demand internationally as a conductor and adjudicator across the United States, South Korea and Canada.

McGray earned her DMA in conducting at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, Master of Music from University of Toronto and Bachelor of Music and Education degrees from Acadia University, Canada. Twice awarded major grants from the Social Science Humanities and Research Council in Canada, her research explores techniques of non-verbal leadership and orchestral and wind ensemble repertoire by traditionally underrepresented composers.

Dr. Christopher Unger is the fifth conductor of the Augustana Band. He began his tenure at the university in September 2015. 

Unger served as the interim director of bands at the University of British Columbia. Prior to that, Unger served as the assistant conductor of both the Eastman Wind Orchestra and Eastman Wind Ensemble. At Eastman, Unger was honored with the Frederick Fennell Fellowship for Advanced Conducting Study, Evan Whallon Conducting Award and prestigious Walter Hagen Conducting Prize. His role at Eastman provided him with the opportunity to act as a producer on the Eastman Wind Ensemble’s 2013 release on Avie Records titled "Stravinsky-Octet/L’Histoire du Soldat." In addition to conducting the wind ensembles, Unger worked with the brass guild, trumpet ensemble and graduate chamber orchestra. He was also chosen to conduct a featured performance of "Imis" by Massimo Luaricella, the 2011-12 OSSIA International Composition Competition winner, with the Ossia New Music Ensemble.

Kiley Coyne serves as assistant director of admission & scholarship and recruitment coordinator for the Augustana School of Music. Additionally, Coyne serves as an instructor of music for the Viking Marching Band and Blue and Gold Band at Augustana, as well as the director of music at First United Methodist Church in downtown Sioux Falls — conducting the Chancel Choir and Handbell Choir. Prior to her position at Augustana, Coyne served as the head director of bands at Washington High School in Sioux Falls for many years and continues to clinic and write choreography for several marching bands/color guards across the Midwest in the summer months.

A Sioux Falls native, Coyne earned a Master of Music degree in instrumental conducting and Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of South Dakota, studying primarily under Drs. Rolf Olson, David Holdhusen and Jonathan Alvis. Coyne is the recipient of the South Dakota Outstanding Young Music Educator Award in 2018, and continues to be sought after by marching bands in the area for her award-winning color guard choreography. Coyne continues to be involved in the Sioux Falls area serving on the board for the Festival of Bands Committee, assisting marching bands, singing in the elite choral ensemble, transept and acting as the starting defensive end and offensive tackle for the Sioux Falls Snow Leopards Women's Tackle Football Team.