Pitt State announces new band director, assistant professor of music 

A new director of athletic bands and assistant professor of music has been hired by Pittsburg State University and will be joining the Department of Music in August. The athletic bands program includes the Pride of the Plains Marching Band — one of the largest organized groups of students on campus. 

Joseph "Jobey" Wilson is a native of the region, having grown up in Oklahoma. As a youth, he marched with the Cavaliers Drum and Bugle Corps.  

Band Director

Wilson graduated in 1999 from the University of Oklahoma, earned his master’s in 2001 from the New England Conservatory, and completed his doctorate in 2020 from Boston University. 

He’ll be returning to the Four States from the Boston area, where he has served as director of athletic bands at Bentley University. He also has taught at Boston College, the University of Southern Maine, and UMASS-Boston, and taught lessons in the Lexington and Hopkinton public schools. 

"I am incredibly excited and honored to join Gorilla Nation! This campus is bursting with talent! I am originally from the Tulsa area, and my family and I are ecstatic for this opportunity to return to the region after 24 years in Boston," he said. 

Wilson has spent many summers teaching at Boston University’s famed Tanglewood Institute, the Atlantic Brass Quintet Seminar, and Boston Youth Symphony summer camps. He developed “Camp Jobey” Summer Brass Institutes at Boston College, which evolved into a year-round program. 

Also working as a Boston freelance musician, Wilson has been principal tuba of the New Bedford, Lexington, and Atlantic Symphony Orchestras, and the Portland Brass Quintet.  

He is a solo recording artist for PARMA Recordings and a clinician for the Eastman Music Company and is often called to perform with groups such as the Boston Pops, Boston Ballet, Portland Symphony, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and many others.

“We look forward to a wonderful association with Dr. Wilson and are very excited about the contributions that he will make to the Department of Music and the PSU Athletic Bands in the years ahead,” said Susan Marchant, chair of the Music Department. 

Wilson fills a vacancy left by Professor Doug Whitten, who served as the director of athletic bands and specialized in low brass for almost 20 years. Whitten died last June. 


Learn more about music at Pittsburg State University:

Music Department