Auburn Riverside High School band director Meghan Wagner was helping to recruit students for the Washington Ambassadors of Music band last April.

So when Central Washington University’s director of jazz studies, Chris Bruya, called that spring day, Wagner assumed he wanted to talk about that. After all, Bruya is WAM’s director.

But Bruya had another idea — he asked Wagner to lead WAM this year.

“They were looking for a new conductor,” Wagner said. “He has heard my band program here at Riverside, and he has judged our groups here before at different festivals and knows we’re really good.”

Wagner’s 40-member wind ensemble at Auburn Riverside has performed at a variety of events throughout the country, including Carnegie Hall in 2014, and even in Vancouver, British Columbia. But the new role means Wagner gets to take about 90 students – seven from Auburn Riverside – overseas. The band will rehearse for three days at the beginning of the summer and then travel in July to Europe for three weeks. It will perform at outdoor venues in England, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein.

Junior Erin McGranaghan, who plays the English horn and oboe in wind ensemble, is among the Auburn Riverside students who’ll make that trip.

“Mrs. Wagner is a wonderful band director,” she said. “She gets so many opportunities for her bands that she directs. Now she’s going to be conducting and leading all of these people. It makes me really proud of my school’s band program.”

McGranaghan described Wagner as “strict and stern” – a characterization echoed by seniors Emma McFarland and Ben Summers, who plays the bass trombone.

But McFarland, who plays the bass clarinet, added that Wagner is also “the nicest person you will ever meet.”

“She does it in a good way,” McFarland said. “You have a healthy fear of her.

“She’s amazing at explaining what we need to do in a way that we can understand. It’s not pretentious or kind of frustrating. She’s patient, but wants us to succeed. It’s great.”

Summers plans to study computational mathematics at Brigham Young University, but McFarland and McGranaghan say Wagner has influenced them to become music teachers.

“She’s been a big inspiration,” McGranaghan said. “I want to teach people how to play cool instruments and all of the cool things about music that you don’t learn off of YouTube or your friend down the street.”

Music plays in the family

Wagner’s own inspiration was family. Her band instructor at Auburn High, from which she graduated in 2000, was her father, Kevin Paustian. He now guides Mt. Baker Middle School’s band. Wagner’s brother, Tony Paustian, is today the band director at Auburn.

“I kind of always knew I needed to do something with music because that was the one thing that no matter what was going on in my life was my favorite activity,” said Wagner, who earned her master’s degree in music education from CWU. “I thought about maybe music therapy for a while.

“But really, when it came down to it, I realized my best way to spread my love of music was by teaching students.”

For Wagner, 33, that extended to marriage. She met her husband, Ryan, while she was earning her bachelor’s degree in music education at Pacific Lutheran University. He is a professional trombone player who performs with the Olympia Symphony, the Federal Way Symphony, the Seattle Rock Orchestra and the Tacoma Ballet. In addition, her twin stepdaughters, Hailey and Mya, also are in Auburn Riverside’s wind ensemble and will travel to Europe, playing the trumpet and trombone, respectively.

“They are superstar musicians,” Wagner said. “It’s going to be fun to take them.”

She said the couple’s 7- and 5-year-old daughters are becoming interested in performing music, as well.

“It’s nice to have that connection with so many people in our family,” Wagner said. “We’re kind of this big musical family that continues to grow.”

Between teaching and raising children, Wagner said she does not have as much time to perform — she and her husband have traveled to Japan as part of a brass quintet – but aims to remain active. She studied piano when she was introduced to music before playing the French horn from middle school through college.

“I had to learn a little bit of each instrument to teach,” said Wagner, who has been the band director for 11 years at Auburn Riverside. “There’s no way I’m an expert in all of them.

“I’m constantly still practicing and working on my own craft.”

Wagner also endeavors to expose her students to different genres of music. While her wind ensemble studied the work of jazz legends Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Thad Jones, the marching band captivated spectators at Auburn Memorial Stadium with the popular sounds of “Star Wars” during halftime at football games.

“I’m a huge ‘Star Wars’ fan, so that was my moment to nerd out before the new movie came out,” Wagner said with a laugh.

She was hard-pressed to identify her favorite form of music before relenting. Wagner said classical narrowly would edge out jazz. With that in mind, Wagner also has some sightseeing in mind beyond the Eiffel Tower.

“I’m also interested in seeing where some of our big-name composers came from,” Wagner said. “Where did Mozart grow up? Where did he write his music? I want to see where Beethoven is buried.”

And listen as the music of the world’s great composers resonates through her mind.