YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The second annual Love Music Legacy concert, honoring the late Stephen L. Gage, will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 18, at Stambaugh Auditorium.

Tickets are $16 (plus a $4 processing fee) and available at StambaughAuditorium.com. Students with an ID will be admitted free.

Gage, who died in 2023, was a music professor at Youngstown State University, where he was also director of bands and the Dana Symphony Orchestra. He spent 28 years at YSU, retiring in 2021. At the time of his death, he was interim director of bands at Indiana State University.

He spread his passion for music through the encouragement, support and development of composers, conductors, performers and audiences.

The Love Music concerts are designed to continue the work and ideals Gage championed.

“The response to the memorial concert in 2023 was overwhelming, and I am thrilled that we can carry on Steve’s legacy by bringing outstanding musicians, conductors, literature and audiences together,” said Stephanie Gage, wife of the late professor. “It is what Steve loved to do, and it is wonderful to see others carry that forward.”

The organization uses the hashtag #LoveMusic and the phrases “Be the Music” and “Dare to be Great” as reminders of Gage’s devotion to teaching and music. For information, go to MissionLoveMusic.org.

Approximately 90 musicians will perform at this year’s concert, including former students, colleagues and friends. The program will include pieces that were meaningful to Gage, such as “Lincolnshire Posy” and selections from “Star Wars.” 

A new work by composer and Dana alumnus Jerry Ascione, “We Are, for Upon Their Shoulders We Stand,” will be dedicated to the memory of Gage, and past and present Dana School of Music faculty.

A retired Navy band musician and composer, Ascione credits his success to the education he received at the Dana School of Music. He has an active post-retirement career as a composer and arranger for multiple ensembles, including the W.D. Packard Band in Warren, where he met Gage.

Ascione earned his degree in 1975 and went on to a distinguished 31-year career in the U.S. Navy, where he served as a French horn player with the U.S. Naval Academy Band and later became the pianist and leader of the Navy’s premier jazz ensemble, the Commodores.

Pictured at top: The late Stephen L. Gage.