It turns out that Julie Andrews was right: the hills are alive with the sound of music, in this case a brand new big band based at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, a hotbed of social rest better known as the final resting place of its past President, Robert E. Lee, than as an epicenter in the jazz world. Be that as it may, longtime music faculty member, composer and arranger Terry Vosbein was ready to put this 20-piece ensemble on the map with their debut performance among established local and regional favorites at one of the area’s summer jazz-oriented celebrations.

Conductor Vosbein and trumpeter Chris Magee, who is on faculty at neighboring Lynchburg College, co-direct this stable of able players they’ve recruited from both sides of the Blue Ridge and all up and down the Valley. While the current music industry climate, for recording, touring - or simply performing - is hardly conducive to starting a group of this size, an advantage of being in academia is access to resources which will help maintain such a program.

But then Vosbein has never been one to follow trends, instead, in his own way, going about work he’s found interesting, such as composing, arranging and recording original music, starting his own record label (Max Frank Music), doing deep research on Stan kenton, including recording some lesser- known works associated with that innovator, and creating an entire album of thoughtful and eminently listenable big-band arrangements of selections from Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, a couple of which were part of this new band’s debut program.

One of Vosbein’s stated goals in starting this band is to play big band music no one else is playing, and among the offerings were a Manny Albam arrangement of Autumn Leaves, a Bill Holman arrangement, originally for Charlie Barnet, of Moten Swing, and Willie Maiden’s Maiden in Distress. Hardly your everyday stuff, and Vosbein’s original tunes, from albums past and future, as well as his Sondheim adaptations, sat nicely alongside, comprising a colorfully varied hour.

Like the late George Gruntz, another big band leader whose ensembles were never long-term full-time his own, Vosbein structured the program so that by its conclusion, everyone in the band had his or her turn as a soloist. Even in the heat, their hour passed quickly – and pleasingly.

The band’s next performance will be their Washington and Lee debut, on October 10, for the Music Department’s Sonoklect Series. (8 p.m., in the John & Anne Wilson Concert Hall of the Lenfest Center for the Arts).

Collective personnel: saxophones – Tom Artwick, Charles Rakes, Edwin Parker, Justin Berkley, Leigh Berkley; trumpets – Chris Magee (Co-Director), Jason Crafton, Brian Quackenbush, Spencer Hadley, Ashley Spice; trombones – Tom Lundberg, Tom Mckenzie, Mark Maynard, John Lloyd, Robert Mott; piano – Wayne Gallops; bass – Bob Bowen; drums – Dave Morgan; conductor – Terry Vosbein (Co-Director).