During his musical career, Sam McClung has worn many hats: composer, arranger, orchestrator, conductor, music copyist, producer, contractor, performer and music educator. For over twenty years he served on the composing/arranging staff of The United States Navy Band in Washington, DC. During his tenure with that prestigious organization, Sam wrote music for all of the various component groups which encompassed every conceivable style. His charts have literally been heard around the world by millions of people.
Since leaving the Navy, he has worked as a freelance composer and arranger writing for promotional packages, jingles, film scores, record sweetening dates, theatrical incidental music, TV productions, musical theatre, and marching band shows. He has also been commissioned to write for the Airmen of Note, the Baltimore Symphony, and has had his music played by such diverse orchestras as the Dallas, Long Beach and Milwaukee Symphonies, and the Buffalo Philharmonic. In addition, he has written for school concert bands, orchestras and jazz ensembles. Some of the well known vocalists with whom he worked include Patti Austin, Melba Moore, Sally Kellerman, Roberta Flack, Gary Morris, Crystal Gayle, Shirley Jones, Maxine Nightingale, and Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers. He also conducted the ensemble for the “Wammies”—the awards ceremony for the Washington Area Music Association—at the Kennedy Center. During his time in Florida, Sam performed regularly with the Ocala Symphony Orchestra as a multi-instrumentalist and wrote pieces for that group as well as others. He has also been a leader/performer in his own professional bands, playing for weddings, receptions, corporate events, and private parties in the DC, Central Florida, and Nashville, TN regions. Naturally, he arranged all of the music for these groups.
Sam has also had a career in music education, beginning with substituting as an orchestra conductor at American University, and in the Calvert County, MD public schools. He then spent five years as a high school band director in Prince Georges County, Maryland, before moving to Ocala, Florida where he was an Associate Professor of Music and the Conductor of Bands at the College of Central Florida from 2001 to 2011. During his tenure at CF his groups won acclaim from the college administration and the community in general. More specifically, his jazz groups—the Patriot Blues [big band] and Combo—earned straight “superior” ratings at IAJE sanctioned festivals, even in competition with groups from well established four-year college and university programs. These groups were also asked to open, multiple times, for Burt Bacharach, Lee Greenwood, and Charlie Daniels. In addition to his normal duties during the fall and spring semesters, for the summer terms of 2002 – 2004 Sam was tasked with recruiting, rehearsing, and conducting the pit orchestras for summer productions of the musical shows Fiddler On the Roof, Meet Me In St. Louis, and Oklahoma.
Never one to sit still, Sam—seeking new challenges—relocated to Nashville, Tennessee to return to full time professional music and the music industry at the national level as both a composer/arranger and performer.
Sam holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Music Education from West Virginia State University and a Master of Music degree in composition from The Catholic University of America. He also studied with the late Manny Albam and the late Ray Wright at the Eastman School of Music’s Arranger’s Workshop/Institute, and has taken post graduate courses in school administration and supervision at Bowie State University. He was nominated and selected to Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers (ninth edition, 2004 – 2005) by his students at the College of Central Florida.
