The Valley Performing Arts Center is providing CSUN students a chance to see Asphalt Orchestra perform on Sept. 13 at 8 p.m. for free. Asphalt Orchestra is taking over the west coast with a tour starting with CSUN.

Asphalt Orchestra is an avant-garde, unconventional, 12-piece marching band based in New York City. In other words, they are “not your mother’s marching band,” The Philadelphia Inquirer said.

Their music ranges from jazz, rock, classical to pop. Among the music they perform include songs by Bjork, Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa, Swedish metal band Meshuggah and Brazilian songwriter Tom Zé.

The orchestra has performed songs written for them by Yoko Ono, St. Vincent and Stew and Heidi Rodewald (Broadway and Spike Lee’s Passing Strange), according to their website.

VPAC ticket office employee, Sarah Makita, 21 is a theater major and encourages students to take advantage of seeing Asphalt Orchestra perform for no charge.

The Orchestra is not known as a sit down performance. They are notable for including their audience as they march through isles.

“They don’t do anything in a sort of normal way,” Makita said.

Asphalt Orchestra had an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where the orchestra split up and performed separately at first and then later reunited and played  together.

“It was completely different than what people are use to,” Mikita said.

Visit the VPAC ticket office Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with your CSUN ID to receive two free tickets to see this band. Watching this orchestra for no charge is a great way to start off the semester.