A pair of Youngstown State University educators will lead the W.D. Packard Concert Band for its first performance of 2023.

Michael S. Butler, director of bands and an associate professor in the Dana School of Music, and Kate Ferguson, director of athletic bands at YSU, will be guest conductors for the concert. Both are in their second year at YSU.

Before coming to YSU, Butler was director of bands for six years at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He also has taught at the University of Florida. Ensembles under his leadership have performed at Carnegie Hall and the Florida Music Educators Conference.

He has guest-conducted such ensembles as the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own.” Butler is a staunch advocate of new music for wind bands and regularly commissions new works for wind bands.

Ferguson is in her 24th year as an educator, teaching in several northeast Ohio public schools as well as being a faculty member of the College of Wooster, Southeast Missouri State University and Kent State University. She earned her bachelor’s degree and doctorate from Kent and her master’s degree from the University of Akron.

Ensembles she’s led have been invited to perform at the International Music Festival at the Kennedy Center, the Northeast Ohio Band Invitational at Severance Hall, the Ohio Music Education Association Professional Conference, the Magnificent Miles Light Parade and the Fort McDowell Fiesta Bowl Parade.

The program will include Samuel Barber’s “Commando March,” Frank Ticheli’s “An American Elegy,” Harold Bennett’s “Military Escort” march, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ English Folk Song Suite and “Sea Songs,” John Philip Sousa’s “Nobles of the Mystic Shrine” march, Morton Gould’s American Salute, Hayden Wood’s “Mannin Veen” and medleys of big band favorites and songs from Disney movies.

The concert starts at 3 p.m. Sunday at Packard Music Hall, 1703 Mahoning Ave. NW, Warren. Admission is free, and funding is provided by the W.D. Packard trust.