UCLA is on the move. Golden capes rise against the Rose Bowl’s green expanse, lighting up each letter of our school’s iconic name. The announcer’s voice booms above the crowd’s clamor: “In 1936, George and Ira Gershwin presented UCLA with a new school song based on one of their biggest hits and retitled it ‘Strike Up the Band for UCLA!’” Flags unfurl, brass shines and the band presses forward in formation. The music kicks off, lifting the crowd’s cheers of excitement toward the sky.

Fours up: The band in its famous script formation at the Rose Bowl

This is the Solid Gold Sound of the UCLA Marching Band, and chances are you’ve bobbed your head to its irresistible beat even if you’ve never seen a Bruin football game. The 250-piece ensemble of woodwinds, drums and brass has performed with the likes of the Rolling Stones and Beyoncé and appeared at the Academy Awards. You can hear its members on Hollywood soundtracks and an album by Grammy award–winning rock band Muse. They’ve graced the cover of Sports Illustrated and nabbed a prestigious Sudler Trophy — the Heisman for collegiate marching bands.

Look beyond the plumage of this hardworking flock, and you’ll find 250 full-time students at the most applied-to university in the country. And while the band has an illustrious home in the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, only about 10% of its members are music majors. Hailing from every corner of campus, these talented undergraduates travel together, make lifelong friends and sometimes even fall in love.  The band that keeps legions of Bruin football fans on their feet has been acing its game for a century, preluding in 1925 as an ROTC band before spreading its wings as a stately 50-piece assembly three years later.

Famed conductor John Philip Sousa, pictured with the band on his last trip to L.A.

The earliest members, those Jazz Age Bruin pioneers, earned their blue-and-gold stripes right out of the gate. In 1928, they received their first uniforms and first full-time director — Benjamin Laietsky, a violinist who had played with none other than the legendary John Philip Sousa, the “March King” himself. When Sousa made his last trip to Los Angeles, he was hailed by UCLA’s freshly decorated marching band — and, in a moment for the history books, he led them in a rendition of his most famous composition, “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” For a college marching band, it’s hard to conceive of a comparable honor.

Except, maybe, kicking off the Olympic Games, which some 125 members of the Solid Gold Sound did in the summer of 1984, when UCLA was host to an international Olympic Village. Strutting across the green at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, they trumpeted Bruin pride for all the world to hear. In 2020, the band went viral after recording a single with K-pop phenomenon BTS on Map of the Soul, the year’s bestselling album worldwide. A year later, the band’s BTS-inspired halftime show chalked up millions of video views across the globe.

The band itself has traveled the world, most recently on a tour of Taiwan led by director Ken Fisher ’95, M.A. ’13, a veteran performer, educator and world traveler who played in the band as a student. But as any Bruin can tell you, it’s the performances close to home that are the most cherished. Look back at UCLA’s brightest moments and chances are the band was there. From Founders Day to centennial celebrations, homecoming parades to halftime festivities, new student welcomes to commencement ceremonies, the UCLA Marching Band provides the soundtrack for Bruin life.

We may not know the name of every trumpeter, flutist or bass drummer, but we’d know their sound anywhere. And through the sound they make, these UCLA students — future creators, change-makers and community leaders — remind us that we thrive best in harmony with one another. 

Take in a show. Enjoy the sound and spectacle of a grand performance. UCLA is a big universe, no question, but one populated by close-knit constellations. Through passion, dedication and, above all, the kind of synergy with which great things take shape, our marching band unites us all — students and professors, athletes and alums — its proud Bruin spirit marching us all toward the future.

Read more from UCLA Magazine’s Winter 2026 issue.