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Intercollegiate Honor Band in 2005 conducted by Dr. Lowell Graham.

We played:

1) “Symphonic Dance No. 2 ‘The Maskers’” by Clifton Williams
2) “American Hymn” by William Schumann
3) “Sevens” by Samuel Hazo (World Premiere)
4) “Fete-Dieu A Seville” (“A Feast Day in Seville”) by Isaac Albinez, arr. Cailliet
5) “Colonial Airs and Dances” by Robert Jager
6) “Galop” by Shostakovich /arr. Donald Hunsberger

It was one of those weekends where time flew by WAY too fast. Every single person that was in that band wanted to be there, and came prepared, ready to work, and performed at the highest level, and Colonel Graham took us to an even higher level. He definitely made the whole greater than the sum of the parts. For sure one of the highlights, not only of my musical life, but of my life, period.

*1969 New Jersey All-State Band conducted by Frederick Fennell-principal tuba.
*Several solo turns with the Indiana Wind Symphony on euphonium.
*Soloist with Otterbein College--Hidas Euphonium Concerto--on tour to Texas & New Orleans & points inbetween.
*Soloist with University of Indianapolis--Hidas Euphonium Concerto.
*Soloist with Butler University--Ewazen Euphonium Concerto--with the composer in attendance.
That'll do for now.
Live recordings of Hidas and Ewazen (and a few other travesties) at www.soundcloud.com/jweuph

Disney World grand opening 1076 piece marching band directed by Meridith Wilson.

Performed Fanfare for the Common Man (and other works of his) with Aaron Copland conducting.

A nice memory for me was in a local SF Bay area concert band circa 1992. I played with Fennel's wife, Jennifer. Er, she played first horn and I played second horn.
Ace

High School Band trips.

Toronto CN.

Wildwood NJ.

College band trips.

Princeton NJ.

I heard we had a great time!

Playing for the rodeo when they came through town. The conductor was a sax player who would smoke a stogie, conduct and play the alto-sax simultaneously. Everything was tempo de tear ass and we got paid $200 in fresh $2 bills. That was a fun gig.

Playing "old barn-burner band music" - back when there was civilization - with a bunch of the old Memphis gang (local feshunul onion-members) at the Memphis Mud Island Amphitheater (basically the mouth of a Mississippi River tributary - the Wolf River) with Keith Brion conducting and giving a little talk in the middle of the show...nearly sold out concert (not cheap tickets). I'm thinking we were billed as his "New Sousa Band" - though (again) it was "just us".

This is also where I played a Henry Mancini concert (with Mancini conducting, and - part of the time - conducting from the keyboard - and with Will Lee playing electric bass).

Back in the early 80's - when I quit my job teaching at KU to return home to freelance - Memphis did NOT suck.

Out of all the crazy band stuff I was lucky enough to be a part of, one event stands above all others:

The Statue of Liberty All-American Marching Band. YouTube if you don’t know what that was.

Funnest. Thing. Ever.

KINGROB76. Paging KINGROB76

Drum and bugle corps. The entire experience was amazing. Extreme hard work, but fantastic.

In college, we performed the Benjamin Britten War Requiem. The students sang (all college choir and children's choir), faculty and other professionals populated the orchestra. We had three performances. The director prepared this event over the course of 2 years. This was the conclusion of his career in this position. It was very emotional. I was a student by the way so this is not a tuba experience, but it was a highlite.

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Conducting what I knew was an extremely talented group of high school kids at UIL band contest, conducting a fairly difficult King march and spontaneously (crazy, I know) deciding to change the tempo at the trio, having never rehearsed doing so, and the kids followed me and never missed a thing. That recording wound up being a Texas state honor band runner-up.

My experiences as a band student were not nearly as interesting as many of yours.

Cameron Gates wrote: ↑Sun Jul 09, 2023 12:20 am Out of all the crazy band stuff I was lucky enough to be a part of, one event stands above all others:

The Statue of Liberty All-American Marching Band. YouTube if you don’t know what that was.

Funnest. Thing. Ever.

KINGROB76. Paging KINGROB76

Cam nailed this.



This is probably the greatest single marching band ever. No hyperbole here, either. 120 trumpets, 76 trombones, 40 sousaphones... Heck, I think there were even 20 melos and 20 euphoniums. Didn't matter which direction that band played, but "horns to the box" with 500 bodies was breathtaking.

New Sousa Band...so much fun...and such GREAT players in the band...

I used to play in the Valparaiso (Indiana) Community Band, led by Dr. Jeff Doebler, the world's nicest man. One summer concert he had a retired fellow, a bass trombonist, conduct the Suite of Old American Dances. He and his wife had played the debut of it in college!
As an aside, my funniest band experience was also with the VCB. We were playing the county fair and I was playing tuba parts on my new bass trombone next to the band's only tuba player, Jeff's son Scott. I had some bad habits from my previous beater trombone and let my slide zip off under the trombone players' seats right as a very dramatic ending started kicking off. I started expressing myself in a very colorful fashion as I retrieved my slide and Scott started laughing so hard that he put his tuba down on his lap, put his head on the horn and couldn't play any more. I, still swearing, get my slide back on right as the song ends. Neither of us had played like the last 50 measures.

In the South Shore Brass Band (also in Valparaiso now) we played a concert in the VU chapel. We played some of the Planets tunes and Enigma Variations as well as a few songs with a choir and the organ. The other Eb tuba player had an emergency and had to cancel and the two Bb players (Wayne Coil and Rich Watson) were absolute powerhouse players. Trying to keep up with them, the organ and the bass trombonist was a trip!

When I took up horn, I pined away to join the best band in town, I mean I nearly ached inside. They gave a series of spring and fall park concerts and still do, in addition to the regular concert season.
When I got into that band, I don't even remember what the concert was. It was being IN that band that mattered. And I'm still in it.

Not really a favorite piece, but my favorite experience was playing in the Teaneck Community Band (NJ) for a few summers. Five weeks of M+W. First week both rehearsals of the more difficult rep, and the other 4 weeks are rehearsal on Monday and concert on Wednesday. Different rep each week, too, and not just fluff.

related...??

10th grade - first year in the senior high band...
The drum major also played sousaphone (and electric bass in the jazz band).
It was ALWAYS a sousaphone player who played bass in the jazz band.

I'm thinking there were approximately seventy-five of us.
The band director did not "recruit". The high school (10-12) consisted of roughly 1500 students.

These were pretty good times for me.
guitar gigs, train-watching (and jumping), a few good friends, money-making schemes (buying cartons of cigs for $2 and selling the cigs for a nickel - ie. $10 // selling counterfeit pep rally and assembly tic's for half price), a few dates (mostly girls who attended other schools - for several pragmatic reasons), youth symphony rehearsals once a week, summer band camp annually in Arkansas (REAL camping - tents, etc.), privileges with little responsibility, nearly unlimited use of my Mom's 1971 Pontiac Catalina (400 cu in) etc...



band camp (probably, my first...After a huge rain, I started an epic mud fight which involved the entire band - except for me . I threw mud at an upper classman, making him believe - via the angle from which the mud was thrown - that another upperclassman threw it at him...All the girls scrambled for their bikinis, and joined in. )

This is a yearbook picture from the year BEFORE I was in the senior high band.

The guy on the right ("Astro" nylon cup mouthpiece and Conn fiberglass sousaphone), was first chair in the All-State band for three years (he was a senior, in this picture).
The guy on the far left (Holton 52 mouthpiece and Holton fiberglass sousaphone) was first chair in All-State band for the next three years.
After that, I was first chair All-State the next year (I used the horribly-worn-valves King three-valve tuba, but I SHOULD HAVE used one of the fiberglass sousaphones - with decent valves).
My friend (11th grader when I was in the 12th) was first chair in the All-State band the next year.
Before any of those people, there were two or three previous (from my school - and NO "tuba lessons") who did the same thing...and with the old brown brass sousaphones.
This string of first chair All-State players lasted fifteen years or so (again: no one had private instruction, and everyone played the sousaphone).
Our band director never attempted to take credit for any of that...He wasn't involved in it...not at all. He told us to get out a piece of music, began conducting it, and we were expected to play it.

ALSO notice that ALL THREE of them knew how to install their upper mouthpipes and tuning bits properly (EVEN WITHOUT someone showing them how to do it...as our band director was NOT a "hands-on" type of guy.

(EVEN THOUGH I make money selling stuff to schools and repairing it after they tear it up), KNOWING WHAT I KNOW about students, instruments, and potential, it really pisses me off to see the government (local/federal/whatever) buying a bunch of super-fancy stuff for super-mediocre-achieving YET spoon-fed children to use/abuse.

The two highlighted in the picture (left and right) grew up in families of EXTREMELY modest means.
The one on the left was the son of a railroad widow. I believe she was a nurse, and was able to keep up the mortgage payments on the house. Their house had a gravel driveway and two bedrooms (the second, he shared with his older brother, who was his class' salutatorian). The other - the same size house with gravel, and two other brothers sharing one room. This was also an era which was - economically - a fairly severe recession and inflation. As an example, a friend of mine bought a 4-valve 186 in C in 1968 for about $800. By the time I bought one in 1974, the lowest price I could find was $1800.

Not a playing experience, but I ran band camp for the local high school for seven years. It’s one of those events that works kind of like the Rose parade, where you start planning it the day after the previous one ends. Not a lot of sleep was had, but a great group of kids and great groups of staff/chaperones. One of the highlights was eating rhubarb pie directly out of the pie pan using plastic spoons.I guess you probably had to be there.

Other than the Woody Allen problem, I believe it would be cool were it that symphony orchestras marched.

A "sort-of" high school girlfriend (went to another school...movies/concerts/dinners dates and tennis/racketball dates, but not a "steady" thing - "a friend who was a girl") was concertmaster in Memphis' youth orchestra (though we actually met at church). I'm pretty sure that she took her violin to the pep rallies and football games, and played the flute parts. I don't believe that school did halftime shows, but I'd wager that she would have asked to have been involved otherwise. I believe she was signed up for band, and hit the practice room for an hour each day...unless she chose to sit with the band and (again) read with the flutes...

...and - just like the rest of us - still hangin' in there...

yeah...I respect people's privacy, when possible.