It’s a homecoming for the director of one student ensemble, which played at Beaumont Inn Friday night as part of the Great American Brass Band Festival.

Tim Dailey, director of the Grant County Brass Ensemble, from the Grant County High School, one of the student ensembles presenting during the festival, is a graduate of Mercer County High School.

“It’s exciting,” he said, after the band completed their performance, ending the night at Beaumont Inn. “I’ve been here so many times a spectator. I thought, if I really make it, I’ll get to play at the brass band festival. Here we are.”

While Dailey said he didn’t know about having “made it,” he does have a “really good high school band program.”

The brass choir is in its first year at the school, forming out of students from the jazz band and marching band. It started because of some “really motivated junior and senior brass players,” Dailey said.

“They’re really into what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s cool to get to bring my kids here.”

Before the Grant County Brass Ensemble, the Bourbon Boys Brass Quintet and the Limestone College Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble performed.

Earlier in the night, swinging brass music drifted over the lawn at Shaker Village, as the Chicago Footwarmers played music of the 20s to a crowd. For Friday night, they focused mainly on music with ties to Chicago, said piano player and music director Dick Domek.

“Chicago was really the place in the 1920s. So everything we played had a Chicago connection or was originally recorded in Chicago,” he said.

The band also goes by the name Walnut Street Ramblers, but took on the moniker the Chicago Footwarmers just for the Great American Brass Band Festival.