Thursday, October 1, 2026
A milestone for SUNY Old Westbury’s newest class of freshmen became a first for the Uniondale High School Marching Knights, when they helped welcome the university’s 800 first-year students by marching across campus and performing during its annual convocation.
The Sept 10 event gave the high school musicians an opportunity to represent Uniondale beyond their home community while getting a glimpse of college life close to home.
“It’s a really good experience, putting ourselves out there and showing people what we got,” Mya Brown, a Uniondale High senior, said. “It’s an experience that I’m glad I was a part of. I hope that for years to come, we get to keep doing that.”
For the past two years, SUNY Old Westbury has featured a high school with which the university has a strong relationship. Last year it highlighted Wyandanch Memorial High School.
“This year we wanted a Nassau County-based group, and our campus has had a long and successful experience with Uniondale High School,” Michael Kinane, Old Westbury’s vice president of communications, said. “[Uniondale] students enroll in some of the largest numbers within our new classes each fall. It made Uniondale an obvious first choice for us.”
Uniondale alumni who now attend Old Westbury were in the audience, and spoke with band members after they performed. “It was a great thing, because we have a few [former] students that go there,” band director Colton Wynter said. “We got to see them in the audience, and also a few of them walked up to us and said hi.”
Brown said she saw people in the audience nodding and moving to the music. “It looked like they enjoyed it,” she laughed.
Brown, who plays flute and piccolo, also served as a section leader. Before the band started marching, she helped the flutes and clarinets get in line. During the performance, she relayed the song selection to musicians farther back in the formation.
“We try to have students do as much as possible — they’re the students, we’re the facilitators,” Wynter said. “I don’t want people to clap for Mr. Wynter. They need to clap for the band.”
For Brown, taking on more responsibility as a senior has also given her experience she believes will carry beyond high school. “I feel like it sets me up for later in life,” she said. “I’m a senior. I’m about to go off to college. Being able to have a leadership position, and understand the importance of leadership, it really sets me up for later when I’m in the workforce.”
The Marching Knights performed a selection of songs, including “I Love Music” and Stevie Wonder’s “All I Do.”
The visit also gave them an opportunity to learn more about SUNY Old Westbury. The university is in the early stages of reintroducing a performing arts program to its curriculum. The first planned step is the creation of a jazz program. Starting 2027 school year, students will be able to minor in music.
The campus introduced an American Music, Dance and Theater program in the early 1970s, but it was eliminated in 1996 due to budget constraints. Kinane explained that at the time, it was thought to be one of the country’s longest-running jazz and world music programs, known for its focus on African American music, jazz improvisation and global musical traditions.
“It was very interesting to know that their music program is evolving from what it was before,” Brown said.
Wynter said he hoped the invitation would be the beginning of a continuing relationship between the two schools. For Brown, the visit came as she begins to think about where she would like to continue her own education. She is considering SUNY Polytechnic Institute and other colleges, and said she hoped music would remain part of her life after high school.
“Music’s been part of my life since I was born,” Brown said. “It’d be weird for me not to continue music.”
The Marching Knights are no strangers to performing beyond Uniondale. The band has taken part in the Stamford Conn. Thanksgiving Day Parade and the African American Day Parade in Harlem, but Brown said that navigating the Old Westbury campus presented a different challenge than more traditional straight-down-the-street parade routes.
“For the past three years, I’ve mostly been observing and understanding how everything works,” she said. “But now that I’m a senior, I have to help the underclassmen understand what to do and where to stand, and what songs are played.”
