Dr. Douglas Presley, Community Band Director
Dr. Douglas Presley has directed the Community Band since 2011. He is Associate Professor of Music, and Band Director and Program Director for Music Education at Limestone College.
Dr. Presley received his B.A. and M.Ed. from Charleston Southern University and a Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has taught in the public schools of Hilton Head, Charleston, and Summerville, South Carolina, as well as Wilmington, Delaware.
Dr. Presley is a two-time guest conductor for the Grammy-nominated UNCG Wind Ensemble, and has been recorded on their compact disk Ra! . His conducting teachers include: Dr. John Locke, Mark Scatterday, Rodney Dorsey, and Michael Haithcock. A percussionist, Dr. Presley has published in Percussive Notes, and continues to work in research projects related to musicians’ sound-level exposures. He has several nominations for Who’s Who Among American Teachers, and is a recipient of the Fullerton Foundation Excellence in Teaching Award from Limestone College. Dr. Presley is currently the Chair of the Teacher Education Committee for the South Carolina Music Educators Association (SCMEA), the Treasurer for the South Carolina Chapter of the College Band Directors Association (CBDNA), and is on the Board of Examiners for the South Carolina Department of Education.
Dr. Presley and his wife Brooke are the parents of four children and live in Gaffney, South Carolina.
Rich Willey, Jazz Ensemble Director
As a bandleader, Rich Willey has presented music at functions and events with a quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, nonet, dectet and even a seventeen-piece big band. Rich’s jazz bands are versatile, playing latin, swing, dixieland, or bebop styles and employ some of the best players in the Asheville and Western North Carolina region.
As both a player and composer, Rich Willey is firmly rooted in the jazz tradition. His trumpet and bass trumpet playing draw upon the wellspring of bebop with a contemporary freshness; brash and forceful, but also lyrical and warm. His compositions and arrangements are thoughtful and substantial, yet always accessible and listenable, combining a solid sense of swing with an overriding concern for melody.
Rich has a B.A. in music education from the University of South Florida. He finished his M.M. in jazz performance in 2001 at the renowned Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Byron Stripling and Mike Abene.