Ceremony honors Copenhaver for career, million-dollar gift
USC honored a benefactor and former band director at a ceremony Tuesday as it named the marching band facility for him.
James Copenhaver, who led the university’s band programs to national prominence after taking the helm of the program in 1976, announced a million-dollar bequest to establish the James K. ta in the School of Music last January after his retirement in 2010.
The gift was the largest in the music school’s history, according to USC President Harris Pastides.
“The Copenhaver Band Hall has a very nice ring to it,” Pastides said.
Chase Harding, a third-year music and business student who received a Copenhaver scholarship, said the award and its donator have affected his time at USC.
“Although Mr. Copenhaver retired the year before I came to school, his legacy and hard work have touched my life almost every day,” Harding said. “No matter how many generations of students come through this school ... Jim Copenhaver’s legacy will live on.”
Memories of Copenhaver’s time at USC have lived on, too.
Tayloe Harding, the dean of the School of Music, reminisced about Copenhaver’s final concert in Feb. 2010 to “300 to 400 people in a ballroom that was absolutely packed.”
During the concert, he said, the session chair asked everyone in the room who had been a student of Jim Copenhaver’s to stand up.
“The entire room stood except for ... a smattering of others,” Tayloe Harding said.
The scholarship fund still needs support, though, he said.
“Alums are the reason that we have this building,” he said. “We are continuing to collect gifts in Jim’s honor to honor his legacy.”
The school is taking donations for naming rights in the building, and it still has a number of available spaces, Tayloe Harding said.
After another musical tribute by the USC Wind Ensemble, Matt McCord, an alumnus of the band, added a few remarks before presenting Copenhaver’s plaque.
“Mr. Copenhaver ... left this place far, far better than [he] found it,” McCord said.
As the ceremony drew to a close, Copenhaver took back the role of conductor, as he led the wind ensemble in a performance of the alma mater.
He shared the role throughout the evening with Scott Weiss, the current director of bands, who conducted the ensemble in renditions of Ernest Tomlinson’s “First Suite of English Folk Dances” and James Barnes’ “Tribute” and with whom Pastides said Copenhaver’s legacy was safe.
“It’s a wonderful band, and I’m sure the future is only brighter,” Copenhaver said.