John Philip Sousa was a superstar in his day. The composer of iconic marches was in high demand throughout his decades-long career, at times inspiring small towns to shut down their schools and businesses for a day so the entire community could celebrate when he came to town.

According to Pennsylvania Academy of Music tuba instructor/vintage recording enthusiast/Sousa impersonator Matthew K. Brown, it's easy to see why.

"Sousa was an entertainer. He was a master of figuring out what the audience really wanted, and then giving it them," Brown said. "The concerts were fast-paced and full of music of all kinds. It was an experience unlike anything we see nowadays."

Brown will give the musically curious a taste of the life, music and times of John Philip Sousa during a multidisciplinary presentation Friday night at St. James Episcopal Church in downtown Lancaster. The event is part of the Academy of Music's Twilight Concert Series.

The presentation will feature period costume, humorous anecdotes, informative stories, solos by music academy faculty, demonstrations of antique phonographs and recordings and a performance on an original Sousaphone manufactured in Philadelphia in 1893.

"I take people back in time so that they can experience what it was like to go to a Sousa concert," said Brown, who appears in period dress in the first half of the program, and dresses as Sousa himself - wearing a replica of the bandleader's uniform - in the second half. "I'll also give people an idea of who he was by telling some stories about Sousa's life."

Brown has a wealth of interesting Sousa material at his disposal. The world-renowned bandleader, champion sharpshooter and violinist was born in 1854, just blocks from the Washington, D.C., Marine base where his father, a Portuguese immigrant, played in the U.S. Marine Band. At 13, Sousa was apprenticed to that band, and by 26, he had become its leader.

Twelve years later, he formed his own concert band, which toured the world over the next four decades, making Sousa a worldwide household name and cementing his place in American music history.

Sousa earned a reputation as the "March King" by penning 136 marches, including the much-loved "The Stars and Stripes Forever." He also wrote 15 popular operettas, 11 suites, 70 songs and numerous other works.

Sousa helped develop the Sousaphone, a tuba-like bass brass instrument that wraps around the player's body, with a forward-facing bell for better portability while marching.

Concert bands in Sousa's time had used the similarly portable helicon, a brass bass instrument that Sousa disliked because of its harsh tone. Sousa asked Jimmy Pepper, of J.W. Pepper Co., to design a new, more rich-sounding instrument for his band. Pepper was up to the challenge, and the Sousaphone, a staple of the modern American concert band, was born.

Brown, a doctoral candidate in tuba performance who has taught at the Academy of Music since 2005, will perform one of Sousa's violin solos on an original 1893 Sousaphone, which he acquired on loan from the J.W. Pepper Co. Soprano Amy Yovanovich and Academy of Music faculty members Julia I (piano) and Rodney Mack (trumpet) also will perform brief period pieces.

In addition to the live music, Brown will play a selection of vintage Sousa recordings on authentic antique equipment.

"I have about 70 phonographs in my collection, as well as the machines I have for sale, and thousands of records and cylinders," said Brown, who began collecting phonographs and antique recordings as a side business while studying for his doctoral degree in music at Michigan State. "I'll play a few pre-1900 cylinders on a few cylinder machines, and a few discs that Sousa released on a few disc machines, just to give people an idea of what recorded music sounded like at that time."

Brown noted that Sousa, who reportedly coined the term "canned music," was not a fan of his own discs - or any discs, for that matter.

"He said that when he was growing up, in the days before recorded music, he could walk down the street and he would either hear people playing the piano in their homes, or he would see them sitting out front on the porch singing and playing a guitar, ukulele or zither. His belief was that the phonograph would put an end to that, and that the nation's musical heritage would be somewhat lost. And he was right," Brown said.

Even so, that heritage is preserved in the music of one of America's best-loved sons, whose very name has become synonymous with patriotism. Brown said there's good reason for that.

"Sousa was a salesman of Americanism, and I think that that was expressed very well in his music and is still communicated today," he said. "When people go to a July 4 concert and 'Stars and Stripes' plays and fireworks go off, I doubt you will see anybody who is not smiling or is not affected in some way. It's certainly not a new piece of music that they are excited about. There's just something special about his music, and I think it came from who he was.

"He was the greatest bandsman who ever lived, and he was a pretty remarkable man."

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Matthew K. Brown's John Philip Sousa retrospective begins at 8 p.m. Friday at St. James Episcopal Church, Duke and Orange Streets. Tickets cost $10 for adults and $5 for non-Academy students. For tickets, call 399-9733.