Not many eleventh-grade students are likely to find a career path that works out, but one Schalmont student already had his future finely tuned.
Brian Sacawa, a 35-year-old Rotterdam native, started playing the saxophone in fourth grade and hasn’t really stopped the music since. Today, he’s a member of the U.S. Army Field Band and tours the country and world. It’s a journey that started in the fourth grade but has grown into a lifelong passion.
“I had a friend that played the saxophone and I thought he was pretty cool,” Sacawa said. “I was just drawn to the saxophone and music for some reason, it is really hard to describe. I always sort of knew this was something that I wanted to do … and I was definitely leaning to the performance side of things.”
He took lessons and after graduating high school, continued his studies and earned a bachelor’s degree in music performance from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. By then, he was well on his way to career success. As a freshman, Sacawa found a magazine article on the U.S. Army Field Band that described how performing in the elite band could be a career option.
“I ripped that article out, even though that wasn’t my magazine, and I kept it to this day,” he said. “To be a performing saxophonist, to me, seemed to be a really great option.”
Right before graduating from UMass Amherst, he auditioned for the band he read about several semesters earlier. That’s when he landed his “dream job” right out of college. Sacawa was a saxophonist in the Army Field Band from Washington, D.C., for three years before leaving in 2002 to continue his studies at the University of Michigan.
“Here I am in my dream job and I decided to leave,” he said.
He admits he was young and really wasn’t ready to commit to the career right out of college. He was still curious and wondered what he could accomplish from a different career in music.
After graduating from Michigan, he taught saxophone at the University of Arizona before reenlisting in the Army and going back to his dream job.
“As an artist, we feel the compulsive need to communicate with people through music,” he said. “I am very fortunate to have a job that allows me to do something that I love and have my talents serve something that is a little larger than myself.”
Sacawa on Saturday, Jan. 5, played in front of large crowd as part of the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, an event featuring the 90 best high school football players from across the country in an East versus West match-up. The 12th annual event at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, had record attendance this year, with more than 40,100 people in the stands.
This was the sixth year the All-American Band performed during halftime. The marching band features 125 of the best high school senior marching musicians and color guard members. Sacawa was the woodwind conductor for the band this year.
Part of the job he enjoys most is when the band travels, there is an educational outreach component. Outside of formal evening concerts, the Army Field Band plays recitals for students, or sometimes Sacawa will even perform as part of a saxophone quartet for college students.
“That allows me to touch people who may have a similar objective in life,” he said.
He travels 100 to 120 days per year with the band, mostly within the country, to “spread the Army message through music.” Through the band, he’s been to all 50 states.
“It is very awesome. We do it so often and so much that it is easy for it to sort of become old hat,” he said. “Every time we go out you see something different and there are areas of the country that are extremely gorgeous.”
The first time he visited Alaska was one memorable trip. He spent two weeks performing across the state.
“Alaska was just so beautiful and the people were so amazing,” he said. “If I wasn’t in the band I probably would have never gone there.”
A more emotional experience is when the band plays an evening concert and there is a family present that lost a loved one in combat. Every time there is such family, he said, the band acknowledges them so the crowd understands the sacrifice they made for their country.
“It is always very emotional for me. I am using my talents for this job … but there are some people that sacrifice a lot more than I have to,” he said. “The fact we are able to do that is very important.”