In his decades as a musician and a musical leader, Larry Dwyer has made significant contributions to the entertainment of countless thousands of people in audiences far and wide.

As Assistant Director of Bands and Director of Jazz Studies at Notre Dame since 2001, Larry has played an integral part in the continued evolution of the importance of music on campus.

The Notre Dame Band prides itself on three themes: Excellence. Family. Tradition. It takes an extraordinary amount of work behind the scenes, by Larry and his colleagues, to produce the sound and atmosphere that tens of thousands enjoy and participate with on a football weekend. 

It starts with the rigorous Band Camp a few days before the start of each school year. While the football team is busy with “two-a-days,” the Band actually has three tryout sessions per day. And not every candidate comes in as an accomplished marching band veteran. “Approximately 30 percent of the students auditioning for the band have never marched before,” he says. “I ask them to identify their left foot, and if they pass that test, I tell them we can teach them to march.”

Some years, there is an extraordinarily short window before a finished product has to perform at a game weekend, like this year’s early season opener in Ireland.

Larry jokes that, when hired by Notre Dame in 2001, the advantage he had over other applicants was that he knew the “hike step” the ND Band is known for.

Dwyer was named Outstanding Bandsman at Notre Dame in 1966, prior to his graduation. He was trombone soloist all four years with the concert band, and twice named “Best Trombonist” at the Collegiate Jazz Festival. He earned his Masters’ degree in music education and did doctoral studies at the University of Illinois.

He’s been a band director and jazz instructor in the South Bend public schools and DeKalb, Ill., High School, and started a jazz studies program at Concordia University in Montreal.

Dwyer has been principal trombonist of the South Bend Symphony Pops Orchestra, a pianist with his own jazz trio, and has performed with such jazz greats as Thad Jones, Clark Terry, Sonny Stitt, and Sarah Vaughan. He wore an Irish tam while playing trombone at the 1968 Newport Jazz Festival.

Among his jazz band compositions are a religious trilogy: “The Old Beelzebub Blues,” “Lord Save the Sinner,” and “The Abha Kingdom.” His orchestral arrangements of the music of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman and others have been performed and recorded by the South Bend Symphony, Houston Pops, Utah Symphony, and Rochester Philharmonic. 

Larry’s musical performances in Europe, Asia, Australia, and across the United States have underscored for him the universality of music and essential unity of humans everywhere.