Photo Provided In front from left are Brooke Sansone, Miranda Volan, Teresa Cybulski, Millard Neal, Debbie Breiding, Linda West-Benyo, Paula Ring and Judith Bush. Behind them, from left, are Olivia Takach, Jason Garczyk, Zack Kuttie, Adam Tarovisky, Carson Kuhn, Matthew McTeague and Doug Neal.

BARNESVILLE — The big band experience is still alive and well, and any musician will tell you that good music never dies, including this style of music affiliated with the World War II era.

On Sunday, Vance Memorial Presbyterian Church at 905 National Road in Wheeling will hold a special concert by Neal Millard, who holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate that he obtained at the age of 80.

The only traditional instruments involved are drums with five separate keyboards playing the parts of five individual instruments, such as saxophone, trumpet or trombone, for example.

“I have one person for each part of the traditional big band era,” Neal said this week. “In other words, I have five keyboards with the trumpet sound and five players in the trumpet section, etcetera, etcetera.”

He said the keyboards sit on a stand and are approximately 4-5 feet in length.

He said the only programming would be when the player pushes the button for the keyboard to play a particular instrument’s sound but after that, it’s all on the musician, of course. Neal said he began working with the current group last September.

“These are individual parts and it’s quite exciting to all of the people involved to be a unit, it’s like players in a band,” Neal said. “They now become a part of the orchestrations for big band. So, in teaching students, I thought this was another way that they can relate to, you know, the era of the big band, sort of a modern way to produce sounds of their grandparents.”

Neal began his musical career back in the second grade, carried it through high school and continued on to college for a bachelor’s degree at the College Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. He stayed on for a master’s degree in music performance. All of his degrees were obtained from the Cincinnati school except for the master’s in theory, which he obtained from Ohio State University.

Neal had a music studio in Martins Ferry and eventually added several more in the surrounding area with 35 teachers working under him at one time. Then he was involved in an accident that caused serious injury, where he and his wife were struck by a drunk driver. That left him to contemplate what to do next.

“In the recuperation I decided to go back and advance my education, possibly be a college professor,” Neal said.

He obtained a second master’s degree in music theory then returned to continue teaching privately. And at the age of 75 he decided to “do the ultimate” and earn a doctorate, which he did at age 80.

Part of his musical background was traveling for a couple years putting in time on the road with bands, as well.

“I played the organ for traveling circuses for a couple of years,” Millard said. “I’ve done just about all that I could possibly squeeze into a lifetime and I’m still teaching and doing two church services per Sunday, staying very active in the performance part.”

He said every few years he’ll put together something of what people will see Sunday and has done around 10 of these concerts.

“The idea is new,” he continued, “all the others were on different themes.”

He said last year he did one show titled “Going Baroque in The Ohio Valley.”

“It was a twist on what musicians were experiencing because of COVID,” Millard said. “They were going B-R-O-K-E.”

The concert begins at 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets can be purchased by calling 740-921-9168.