Not to blow their own horn, but the Copper Hills High School marching band performed at a popular summer music concert and, well, blew their own horns for the finale.

On July 22, 105 CHHS band students marched onto the stage and into the aisles of Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre to join the touring pop band AJR in a show stopping encore number, a mashup of several of the group’s most popular songs, to end the concert with a spectacular bang.

CHHS band members practice for their performances with AJR at their July 22 concert at Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre. (Photo courtesy Shannon Perry)

“Everyone was beaming about it, everyone was so excited,” drum major/mellophone player Adam Corbine said. “When we got out there and we did it, it was the coolest feeling I've ever had. It was indescribable.”

CHHS senior Eden Nicolaysen, who, as drum major/mellophone player, usually plays for audiences of a few hundred, said playing for an enthusiastic crowd of 13,000 was a new experience.

“Just seeing the reactions of people around me and how excited they were just kind of made me feel happy that we were able to provide them with this experience, and to have them feel the same thing that we were, that they were also part of this once-in-a-lifetime thing as well,” she said.

 Corbine said it was the opposite experience of playing in the pep band at a school sports event.

“We ran out onto the aisles—into the people—and it wasn't us pumping them up, it was them pumping us up, clapping and applauding,” he said. “So it was a totally different feeling of they want us here, rather than we're trying to get people to want to be here.”

CHHS marching band performs at friends and family night. (Photo courtesy Shannon Perry)

Alisha Gregson, in her concert review on utahconcertreview.com, called the students ‘talented’ and said it was an impressive, ‘show-stopping’ number. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I can only imagine how exciting that was for the marching band students of Copper Hills High, and their hard work showed through in their performance,” she wrote.

Corbine said the attention band students have received for their concert appearance has upped their social ‘coolness quotient’ and brought more awareness to the band program.

“The football team this year actually has been a lot more supportive,” he said. “They've been so much more open to us playing more and we've implemented songs from the coaches when they're like, ‘Play this song! We want to hear you guys!’” 

High school students marched on stage and in the aisles of the AJR concert at Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre on July 22. (Photo courtesy Shannon Perry )

The pep band performs at football and basketball games to boost audience enthusiasm and they hope to expand to volleyball and hockey games this year as well.

While the AJR concert currently tops the list of amazing experiences, CHHS band director Chris Kuhlemeier provides several unique performance opportunities and collaborative experiences for band students throughout the year.

“Band is awesome, and the more we can get our kids to appreciate it in a variety of contexts, the more we can apply that and spread that joy among ourselves and into the community, the more fun that we can have in our craft while we're still able to do it,” Kuhlemeier said. “After you graduate high school, music becomes a lot harder to access, so we really want to celebrate it while we have it.”

In the last few months, marching band students have marched in six local parades, attended a five-day intensive marching band camp and memorized the music and drill for their competition show. The marching band and color guard will perform their spaghetti western themed spectacular, featuring a lively banjo solo and music by Johnny Cash and Beyoncé, at six marching band competitions throughout the fall season. Many of the band students are also currently in rehearsals for the pit orchestra which will provide the music for CHHS’s theater department’s musical production of “Brigadoon” in November.

CHHS marching band performs in the Sandy parade. (Photo courtesy Shannon Perry)

As they have for the past two years, Jazz Band students will solicit permission from ‘some of the big names in the pop funk genre,’ to compose their own arrangements of their songs which they will showcase at a completely student-produced spring concert.

“We go big—I’m talking fog machines, confetti cannons, lights, the whole shebang,” Kuhlemeier said. “It's really cool treating our students like pros in that regard and giving them some further insight in the music world.”

Kuhlemeier has lots of ideas and utilizes his network of contacts from the recording studio and talent management business he owns, as well as cold email pitches, to initiate unique projects for his students.

CHHS band marches in the 2025 Days of ‘47 Parade. (Photo courtesy Shannon Perry)

“Throwing ‘education’ in the subject line tends to grab some attention,” he said.

Kuhlemeier introduces students to the production side of the music industry with a comprehensive music production course he created. The class, which is the only one of its kind offered in Jordan School District, appeals to both musicians and technicians.

“The course offers the career benefits of being an audio and sound technician and the creative insight of being a composer," Kuhlemeier said. “We all come out published SoundCloud rappers by the end of it. We have a lot of fun.”

Kuhlemeier frequently collaborates with other bands. He created an annual Bandstravaganza event, in which the local high school and middle school bands promote their programs and get elementary school students excited about registering for band classes.

CHHS band marches in the 2025 Days of ‘47 Parade. (Photo courtesy Shannon Perry)The upcoming Oct. 16 concert will feature a few of CHHS’s band ensembles as well as the West Hills and Sunset Ridge Middle School bands and the West Jordan Community Band.