Who created National Band Director's Day?

The day is kept on May 20 across the United States by schools, community ensembles and broadcasters. Beyond that the record is empty: a founder's name and a founding year circulate on holiday listing sites, but no primary source supports either, so the origin is undocumented.

Is it the same as National Marching Band Day?

No, they are different observances on different dates. National Marching Band Day falls on March 4, a pun on march forth, and is about marching bands rather than the people who direct them.

Is the day connected to the Band Directors Marching Band?

No. The Band Directors Marching Band and its sponsoring Michael D. Sewell Memorial Foundation are a separate project, and their own website makes no reference to the day.

National Band Director’s Day

Next celebratedThursday, May 20, 2027

America's first high school band was formed in 1857, after a superintendent overheard students playing tissue paper combs. May 20 is when US schools and ensembles thank the people who run band programs now.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEMay 20

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYCareers

SUBCATEGORYEducators

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The only founder claim traces back to listing sites.

Schools, districts, community ensembles and at least one public radio program mark National Band Director's Day on May 20 across the United States. No founder, establishing announcement or first observance is documented, and no source explains the date.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday

INTRO

When the conductors became the band

On New Year's Day 2022 a marching band came down Colorado Boulevard in which every single member was a band director. The Tournament of Roses called it the first known Rose Parade marching band in which all 270 members are band directors. Between them they had taught 4,539 years.

National Band Director's Day is for those people. It is a United States observance, kept mostly by the schools, districts and ensembles whose music programs they run.

Almost nothing about the day itself is on the record. The profession is, in unusual detail.

ORIGINS

Band Director’s Day history

INTRODUCTION

Mike Sewell joined the music staff at Pickerington High School in Ohio in 1981 and stayed until he retired in 2015. Under him the Marching Tigers played six NFL halftimes and performed for five presidents. The Tournament of Roses selected the band four times.

He died on April 15, 2017, at 59. His widow, Karen Sewell, and Jim Kuebler, whose five children had studied under him, started the Michael D. Sewell Memorial Foundation that year.

CHAPTER 01

The float nobody could afford

They set their sights on Pasadena, because Sewell had taken his own bands there four times. Then they ran into the price. A Rose Parade float costs a quarter of a million dollars or more.

Their answer inverted the usual arrangement. They invited up to 300 band directors to march alongside the float, and paid for the float out of a portion of the marchers' own participation fees. The people being honored funded the honor.

CHAPTER 02

A band assembled from directors

The Band Directors Marching Band came together in 2018. Jon Waters, who directs the Falcon Marching Band and teaches music education at Bowling Green State University, has led it since its first year.

Its members ranged from recent music education graduates to retired veterans, drawn from across the United States and Mexico. Macy's called after Pasadena, and the band marched in New York in 2023.

CHAPTER 03

The day is the undocumented part

National Band Director's Day sits oddly against all of that. There is no founder on record, no establishing announcement, and no documented first observance.

What can be dated is thin and secondhand. The day was already being listed by outside calendars in May 2022, which is a floor on the listing rather than a start date for the observance. Whoever set May 20 aside left nothing behind, and no source explains the choice.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Band Director's Day by the Numbers

48: States in the 2022 Rose Parade band
400: Directors in the 2023 Macy's parade
76: Teachers of the year among the marchers
57,000+: US members of the music educators' association

TIMELINE

Timeline

Thompson Island forms a band

The superintendent of the Boston Farm School on Thompson Island bought brass, reeds, drums and uniforms and formed a band.

Music educators organize nationally

The association now known as the National Association for Music Education is founded.

A foundation in Sewell's name

Karen Sewell and Jim Kuebler establish the Michael D. Sewell Memorial Foundation in Pickerington, Ohio.

The Band Directors Marching Band forms

Jon Waters begins directing an ensemble whose members are all band directors.

270 directors march Pasadena

The band plays an arrangement of 'Seventy-Six Trombones' by Ohio composer Lisa Galvin behind its own float.

Macy's, then the 9/11 Memorial

The band marches the Thanksgiving parade in Manhattan and performs at the 9/11 Memorial during the same trip.

There's really never been a band directors' band ever assembled. Usually the band directors lead their students in a band and this was the first time that a band of actual band directors had been assembled.

Jon WatersDirector, Band Directors Marching Band

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Band Director's Day

One band, ten directors, 146 years

The Christian Brothers Band in Memphis, formed in 1872 and America's oldest continuously performing high school band, had had only 10 directors in its 146-year history as of 2018. The director in post then, Patrick Bolton, had attended the school and played in the band.

A comic strip helped fill the roster

The Rose Parade project was advertised nationally with help from Funky Winkerbean creator Tom Batiuk, who supplied a promotional image of his strip's self-described World's Greatest Band Director, Harry L. Dinkle, and featured the project in the strip itself.

Six of them ended up in the Boston Symphony

More than half the student body eventually played in the Boston Farm School band, and six of its early members went on to join the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The band's first parade was a year late

The directors came together to march the 2021 Rose Parade. Their appearance was postponed to 2022 because of COVID-19.

One director takes all 100 students to Broadway

Seth Riehl of Anna S. Kuhl Elementary School takes every one of his 100 students to a Broadway play each year and seats them right up front. While his classroom was under construction he ran lessons and full band rehearsals in part of the cafeteria.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Band Director's Day Matters

Service

A condolence letter each, assigned as part of the parade.

Weeks after September 11, 2001, Mike Sewell took a Pickerington band to the Macy's parade. Every student was assigned to write a letter of condolence to the family of a firefighter or police officer who had died, and to march in that person's honor.

Reach

School music is a minority experience

Only 24% of the US high school class of 2013 enrolled in even one year of band, choir or orchestra, measured across a federal longitudinal study of that cohort. The other three quarters finished high school without a single year of it.

Notice

Institutions actually mark the date

Arizona PBS gave its Take Note program over to the day on May 20, 2025, as aired on the classical station KBACH. An Illinois school district posted its own tribute the same day, naming the two teachers who run its band program.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Band Director's Day

Name the educators, not just the day

The Northshore Concert Band marks May 20 by publishing the names and instruments of the roughly half of its musicians who teach music professionally. A list of real names does more than a generic thank you.

NOMINATE

Nominate a director for a public spotlight

The school services team at Music & Arts profiles individual band directors for the day rather than running a sale. Ask a supplier, a district office or a local paper to do the same for someone you know.

BACK

Back a service project run through music

The Service Through Music initiative asks band members to plan and carry out projects in their own communities. Offer a program the transport, the venue or the hour it needs.

LOOK

Look up how the profession organizes itself

The National Association for Music Education has represented music teachers since 1907. Its own pages are the shortest route to what the profession is currently asking for.

Follow the band made of band directors

The Band Directors Marching Band has been assembling music educators from across North America since 2018. Its sponsoring foundation publishes where it is marching next.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Band Director’s Day?

1 / 8

What made the Band Directors Marching Band unusual at the 2022 Rose Parade?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance, so schools, offices and banks stay open. A Federal Register search returns no US federal proclamation, rule or notice that names the day.