Incredible musicians I was lucky enough to know
When people talk about Indiana University of Pennsylvania, they usually mention teachers, the culinary school, maybe the football team, and hopefully now the proposed medical school. What doesn’t get said often enough is that IUP attracted and produced some incredible musical giants whose influence spread far beyond Western Pennsylvania, long after they left campus.
Fortunately, I knew and still know a few of them. Knowing them changed how I hear the world, and how the world listens to music. These were my roots, and to this day I firmly believe that my journey through life was heavily influenced by my experience at IUP.
Let’s start with Jon Woods. Jon worked with us on WJAC TV’s Heartland Band. Around IUP he was a kid from Barnesboro via Spangler, Pa., who happened to be incredibly precise, always prepared, and totally committed to the fact that excellence was not optional. Like many of us who practically lived in practice rooms at IUP, Jon paid his dues.
He went on to earn degrees from Penn State and Michigan, but his foundation was pure IUP, solid musicianship. When Jon became director of The Ohio State University Marching Band, he didn’t just keep the tradition alive; he took it to new heights.
He wrote computer-charted drills in the 1980s. He created shows that looked easy but those of us in the biz realized how incredibly difficult they were. Jon’s bands could stop 100,000 people cold in their tracks. But the image that sticks with me isn’t his band shows, it was Jon standing with students at the end of the game, singing the Ohio State alma mater. He believed that music is about belonging.
Guy Klucevsek, a great college friend, was different. Guy took the accordion, an instrument that was best recognized for polkas and blew the doors off. After IUP and Pitt, he worked with composers like Robert Bernat, and then he took deep dives into experimental music at CalArts. He collaborated with incredible musicians and composers who didn’t care one bit about tradition, and he refused to be boxed in. Guy proved you could honor where you came from while changing the world of music. I remember him most as he played Danny Boy for Sen. John McCain’s funeral.
We will never forget Jim Self. If you’ve ever felt tuba notes vibrating your body during a movie score, you were probably hearing Jim Self. He played in “Close Encounters,” “Jurassic Park,” “Star Wars,” and hundreds of other movies. Another IUP product, Jim went from Oil City to Washington to Hollywood and became the sound of aliens, dinosaurs, and far away galaxies. He taught for decades, shaping generations of musicians. Jim never acted like a star. He just showed up, played beautifully, and made the instrument sing.
Finally, there’s no one like Steve Skorija, who is still thriving in Orlando. If you’ve been to Disney World, to Epcot, been on a Disney Cruise, or watched a Super Bowl halftime show a few decades ago, that was Steve’s work. Steve grew up around Indiana County, went to IUP, then Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon, and ended up creating the sounds of Walt Disney World for decades. He treated Disney as a living music box. Steve’s career reads like a travelogue. Yet when you talk to him, he’s still the kid from Indiana County who just wanted to make beautiful music, and he did. That’s an IUP trait they all had.
Looking back, what strikes me isn’t just how successful these people became, it’s how similar they were at their core. They were serious without being self-important. Grounded without being small-minded. That combination may be IUP’s greatest contribution to the arts.
We didn’t know we were surrounded by giants at the time. We just knew some people worked hard and expected more of themselves. Turns out, that’s how giants are made.
Nick Jacobs is a resident of Windber