Jim Latimer has an exemplary dedication to music and the arts. He lives his belief that music is for everyone. He gives back to the community through his extraordinary talent in music performance and teaching, as well as through his warm personality. This is proven by audience responses to his performances as a percussionist and conductor. He has a unique ability to combine everyday values of excellence and fairness in everything he does. It shows in the careers of his students, now scattered across the country in positions of prominence and excellence: as a conductor of the Topeka Symphony; as the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Coast Guard Band; as teachers and professors of music in public and private schools at the elementary, middle, high school, and college/university levels; and as physicians at Mt. Sinai and Duke University Medical Center, to name a few.
Latimer has devoted his life to taking music to the people of the community and the state. He combines his love of music and extraordinary talent as conductor of one of Wisconsin’s finest professional concert bands, the Capitol City Band, and as a performing member and founder of Madison Marimba Quartet. He conducts Madison’s oldest volunteer community band, which gives musicians of any age a place to play and presents public-service concerts in nursing homes, health care and retirement centers, senior centers, hospitals and for veterans’ services.
