Join us for the following events this fall!
Saturday, 9/14, 12:00 pm: CU Downtown @ Ithaca Commons
Saturday, 9/28, 11:00 am: Alumni Luncheon @ Fischell Band Center.
RSVP through this form.
Saturday, 9/28, 2:00 pm: HOMECOMING Big Red vs. Yale (Home)
Saturday, 10/5, 1:00 pm: Big Red vs. Albany (Home)
Friday, 10/11, 6:00 pm: Big Red vs. Harvard (Home)
Saturday, 10/26, 12:00 pm: Big Red @ Brown (Away)
Saturday, 11/2, 1:00 pm: Big Red @ Princeton (Away)
Saturday, 11/9, 1:00 pm: Big Red vs. Penn (Home)
Saturday, 11/16, 1:00 pm: Big Red vs. Dartmouth (Home)
Saturday, 11/23, 12:00 pm: Big Red @ Columbia (Away)
Saturday, 11/23. ~6:00 pm: Sy Katz ’31 Parade
The Big Red Bands are excited to welcome you back to campus for reunion, June 6-9!
Join us for our annual reunion luncheon on June 8 from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM at the Fischell Band Center. Let us know if you plan to attend by filling out the reunion form.
We also encourage you to stop by to see the band perform at the following events:
*Diversity Alumni Programs Dinner – Friday, June 7 @ 6:45 PM in the Physical Sciences Building
*Fun in the Sun – Saturday, June 8 @ 3:15 PM on the Arts Quad
*Class of 1999 Dinner Reception – Saturday, June 8 @ 6:15 PM on the Ag Quad
*Cornelliana Night – Saturday, June 8 @ 8:30 PM and 10:15 PM on Bailey Hall Plaza
If you’re interested in playing with the band, fill out the reunion form so undergrad leaders can prepare music and instruments.
We look forward to seeing you!Hey Alumni!
Hello! My name is Erin! I’m a senior flute that actually goes to Ithaca College, not Cornell (whoops). I’m majoring in religious studies with a minor in anthropology. In 2023 I served on bandstaph as one of the flute section leaders along with Izzy Cowan! And in 2022 I was a fundraising chair, I put out the first couple batches of the uniform pillows! I won’t graduate until December 2024, so this year I’m serving as an alumni chair, as well as helping with librarian and historian duties, I like to be kept busy!
Hi, I’m Duck, and I’m a junior trumpet. I’m part of the long lineage of trumpets who are also electrical and computer engineers, including KP ‘06 and Buddy Holly ‘14. I’ve just finished up my 2023 terms as the secretary of the Pep Band and the trumpet SpinMaster. This year, in addition to alumni relations, I will be one of the librarians for the Pep Band.
My name is Kelly, but I also go by Komet, and I’m a sophomore studying physics and computer science in Arts and Sciences. I’m a trumpet and horn player and have served as last year’s pep treasurer, equipment chair, and webmaster, and this year I’m also serving as a historian.
Hello, I’m Dina, and I’m a freshman tuba player and an occasional horn player. I’m studying electrical and computer engineering. Along with Alumni Relations, I will be a field manager this year and a historian and fundraising chair for the Pep Band. I’m really looking forward to this year.
We are all so excited to be your 2024 Alumni Relations chairs! Stay tuned for upcoming announcements about our Giving Day livestream and other spring performances!
Feel free to reach out to us at ebaum@ithaca.edu, rdh247@cornell.edu, kfl35@cornell.edu, and dn333@cornell.edu! We look forward to (hopefully) meeting you at Reunion and Homecoming this year!
Peace and aardvarks,
Erin Baum ‘24
Bobby “Duck” Haig ‘25
Kelly “Komet” Leiby ‘26
Dina Nabavian ‘27
And now…presenting the only REAL Band Notes in the Ivy League!
HEY ALUMNI!
I’m so excited to be writing to you as your 2024 Drum Major! Just in case you forgot, my name is Nina, but most people in the band know me as Pauws (pronounced like a “pause” button). I’m a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences from Sturbridge, Massachusetts. I’m planning to major in Psychology with minors in English and Performing and Media Arts (with a concentration in theater). My post-graduation plans still haven’t changed: I’ll be applying to law schools, focusing on family law. Hopefully, they let me in (fingers crossed)!
In the BRMB, I’ve spent a lot of time behind the scenes. As a past Drum Major and Show Committee Chair, I’ve loved getting to see how rehearsals have an impact on each member. Outside of the BRMB, I play my trumpet (and sometimes cymbals) in the Big Red Pep Band. This is also my first year on cymbals in the Cornell University Indoor Drumline.
Through a LOT of trial and error, I learned a lot about myself as a leader and the band itself. With a new understanding of what works and what doesn’t, I have a couple of goals for the upcoming year. I want to continue to bring our sound to old songs, and hopefully keep salvaging lost traditions. I plan on bringing these into spring music rehearsals. If you tune into Giving Day, you might hear a couple! I want to work new show music into those rehearsals, too. Our Show Committee Chairs are extremely prepared and full of ideas, so I’m excited to see how they’re mirrored in our shows.
We’re in a new post-COVID-shutdown era of the band, which opens up a lot of opportunities to set precedents. I want to help Section Leaders and Show Committee members feel confident in their abilities, especially when teaching the ropes to future generations. We’re already hitting the ground running; I held a forum with Section Leaders to talk about expectations, worries, excitements, and future plans. They had a lot of questions and want to do right by their members. They’re so positive and accommodating! I’m VERY excited to work with them this year.
On the topic of leadership, I’m looking forward to seeing the band grow again in this new era. The current freshman class is huge and seeks out opportunities for leadership. The new members we’ll meet in the fall have incredible role models to help them navigate Cornell. I’m also beyond ecstatic to be working with this year’s Head Manager, Emily Jones. She is such a dedicated, hard-working, kind person, and I know she’s going to do incredibly well.
This season is going to be eventful, energetic, collaborative and (hopefully) productive. I can’t wait to share our sound with you all. I’ll see you all at Reunion, Homecoming, Sy Katz, and more!
Nina “Pauws” Ellison ‘25
Hi Alumni!
My name is Emily Jones, and I am so excited to be the 2024 Head Manager! I am a member of the clarinet section, and last year, I was one of the clarinet section leaders. I am from Buffalo, NY, and I am a junior majoring in Biological Sciences in CALS with a concentration in microbiology. I also have two minors, one in Infectious Disease and one in Education. Outside of band, I am a member of the Whittaker lab at the Vet School, where I study Feline Coronavirus.
This year, I have a lot of ideas that I hope to put into action. One of my goals is to further define the role of our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Chairs so that way next year there is a smooth transition and expectations already outlined. Some of the things in the works are workshops for Bandstaph and other community-building events. In addition, in collaboration with our pub chairs, there have already been several social media posts for Black History Month and Lunar New Year. We hope to keep this going throughout the year by having many different heritage months featured. Our philanthropy coordinators have also been hard at work organizing different events for the band, such as a day at the Ithaca Sciencenter for children to see different instruments and how they sound.
In the fall, I want to continue having personal events with our Drum Major Pauws, such as HM/DM breakfast. New member retention was incredible last year, and I want that to be the case again this year. Speaking of Pauws, I am so excited to get to work with her this year! She did an amazing job last year, and I can’t wait to see all that she accomplishes this year.
As for the marching season, I am so excited for the band to go to Brown, Princeton, and Columbia. Our upperclassmen are really looking forward to doing the Sy Katz Parade again, and our new members cannot wait to be a part of it this year. We hope to see you all there!
I cannot wait for marching season to start again, and I am looking forward to a really great year!
Emily “EJ” Jones ‘25
Hey Alumni!
My name is David “Dubs” Kaprielian, and I’m your 2024 Pep Band Manager! I’m a junior trumpet player hailing from Mahopac, New York, and I’m majoring in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Archaeology! I was Pep Conductor last year, and now I’m looking to help the band out behind the scenes!
Entering this year, the Pep Band is in a fantastic place. Recruitment was immense this year, and we have quite a few freshmen already at the 100-point mark! Almost every hockey game has been filled to the brim, and we’ve even been able to split the band during away trips! I’m excited to keep the good vibes going over the course of this year.
Our schedule this year has been jam-packed so far, especially with away trips. As of me writing this, we’ve played at Harvard, Dartmouth, RPI, and Union, with the NorthCountry trip coming up this weekend! It’s been super awesome getting to play in all sorts of different rinks, and exploring the cities around them. Looking ahead, potential playoff games for both Hockey and Basketball look to add a lot more mileage, the ball keeps rolling!
At home, we’ve had our foot on the gas since before the start of classes! Both the MHockey and WHockey teams have been doing a whole lotta winning with us in attendance, allowing them both to clinch the Ivy Championship! The band sounds fantastic, and nothing is better than blasting España or Through the Fire and Flames in a packed Lynah environment.
We’ve gone to a number of other sports too! Some of my favorites this year were us going to the Club MHockey and WHockey teams’ Senior Games! They really appreciated us being there, and it was a super fun time. We also have been at some Men’s Basketball games, as they surge to the top of the Ivy League, and to Wrestling as they took down #2 Missouri! We’re also looking forward to the onset of Lacrosse Season, and many specialized Davy’s to come.
I’m super excited to get the pep band to as many games as possible, holding strong our traditions, and keeping us sounding spectacular. For all y’all alumni, feel free to stop by and say hi! We’d all love to see ya.
Here’s to another awesome year of Pep!
David “Dubs” Kaprielian ‘25
Hey everybody!
We are Catherine and Slice and we’re your Spring 2024 Pep Band conductors! The semester has gotten off to an exciting start with the continuing Men’s Hockey season, securing a win with Princeton 6-2 and an OT win with Quinnipiac in our first weekend of events. Our band shipped “up” to Boston for our INCREDIBLE WIN against Hahvahd in a 2-0 shutout!! We got to collaborate with many other bands at home in Lynah and also away at other rinks like Brown, Dartmouth, and RPI for some megaband shenanigans. After a tense shootout win against Yale, we also became Ivy Champions! We’re hoping to continue this momentum at our upcoming trip to Clarkson / SLU and (fingers crossed) post-season hockey fun!
This semester we’ve also been at a lot of Women’s Hockey games to support their incredible season as Ivy League champs (first time in 4 years)! They’ve been having a fantastic year and it’s been an honor to be able to play at their games this semester. As for other events, we’ve performed at Men’s Basketball, Wrestling, and both senior games for Men’s and Women’s Club Hockey and we’re excited to continue attending these events, especially with Lacrosse season starting up and Ivy Madness on the horizon.
It’s been great to see everyone at rehearsals and to continue working as a trio with Dubs this semester, and we look forward to keeping up this energy at upcoming events! We love seeing all the olds both at Lynah and away rinks keeping the Big Red spirit alive. Hoping to have a great rest of the semester with lots of wins all over and even more of a blast playing some sensational songs with everyone!
Peace and Ivy Champions all around,
Catherine “Ian Shane enthusiast, californians stick together” Frank ’26
Slice “floppy armed Zoot Suit Riot devotee” Scialabba ’25
Hey Alumni!
As we come to the close of another successful season of the Big Red Bands, we are excited to share some of our best experiences with you. We’ve brought our Big Red spirit to games in New Haven, Philadelphia, and Cambridge as well as Ithaca. We loved having you at events like the alumni reunion, Homecoming luncheon, and all of our performances! We couldn’t do all that we do without our alumni!
We’ve had a wonderful time serving as your 2023 Alumni Relations chairs, and can’t wait to see what next year’s Alumni Relations chairs will do as we pass on our roles.
Peace and aardvarks,
Claudia “Crash” Slivovsky ‘25 and Sterling “Limbo” Chargois ‘26
And now presenting…the only REAL Band Notes in the Ivy League!
Hello Alumni,
It has been a pleasure serving as the band’s 2023 Head Manager. While this past year has been a challenging one, it has definitely been extremely rewarding and I could not have asked for a better term.
There were a lot of changes introduced in the start of our term, such as a new Operational Lead, a new Drum Major advisor, and working with a new Majorette team that was formed this year. While these changes were overwhelming at first, they worked out very well for the band. Through the year, these relationships have become more defined, and I hope they can continue to be positive ones going into 2024. As many of you saw during Homecoming, we gave a fantastic performance with the Majorette dance team. It has been such an honor to be a part of Cornell history bringing in a dance group with such significance in black culture.
My goals at the beginning of the year were to further define the role of the Diversity Chair, promote retention, and ensure that trips to Yale and Harvard were able to continue post-Covid. All of these goals were met throughout the year. We shifted the Diversity Chair position to a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. While getting the position off the ground was hard, plans for the benefit of future generations were eventually put into place. Some things that our DEI Committee worked on was maintaining a list of events from different diverse organizations happening on Cornell’s campus for the band to attend, providing education on social media during important history months, and working with pub chairs to promote other important events.
Having great new member retention was a huge goal going into the fall semester. High retention indicates that new members feel there is a community in band and want to come back every day to continue to be a part of it. Another key part of retention is that members feel safe in band, which is extremely important to me. Band was the first community I found at Cornell, and I wanted to ensure that new members could feel the magic I still feel to this day. Our retention this year has been phenomenal. Most of the new members that joined at the beginning of the semester are still active, which is a sign that we as leaders were able to do our job well this year.
My last goal was to ensure trips like Yale and Harvard (which haven’t happened since 2019) were able to happen. Thankfully, we were able to travel to both this year. Even though the performance at Herald Square could not happen, we were still able to connect with our alumni in the New Haven area during the Yale game and our post- game concert. Two weeks later, we traveled to Harvard and performed at Faneuil Hall. During this trip, we were able to cheer on Cornell at the game, explore Boston, and perform for our families and alumni in the Boston area. We also traveled to Penn in early November. In previous years, we’ve run across issues with Penn, but this year due to our work and previous Head Managers’ work, we were able to avoid all issues that have occurred in past years. Overall, all of our trips were successful and we had a ton of fun traveling to other Ivy League Universities and seeing everyone there.
Aside from football games, we were able to continue enjoying on-campus/local performances such as Dragon Day, Spring Concert, Cornell Days, Senior & New Student Convocations, Reunion, Special Rehearsal, and many more. The band also enjoyed giving back to the community with philanthropy events like the instrument exhibit at the Ithaca ScienCenter and assisting with tree planting at the Botanical Gardens.
Looking back on the past year, I am so happy I was given the opportunity to serve as the 2023 Head Manger and I am proud of all that has happened this year. None of this, though, would be possible without the constant support and hard work of Pauws and Bandstaph. Also, I’d like to thank Slice for his work leading the Pep Band in an amazing year. Lastly, nothing would be possible without the huge support of our alumni base, so thank you as well.
I look forward to seeing what future band leaders do and I am excited to see our organization that we all love keep growing. Thank you for an incredible year.
Beyan Kesselly ‘24
Hey Alumni (again)!
It’s your favorite trombone-playing pep band manager, Slice, here with some updates about the past nine months:
After a slow start, the hockey season really began to heat up. We bested Yale and Brown on the road, before sweeping Clarkson at home and heading over to Lake Placid. While we lost to our Massachusetts rivals there, we pulled of a miraculous shutout upset of the #1 seed Denver before finally ending our season against BU. With five hockey trips (and a split band being sent to Ivy Madness at Princeton for good measure), it was certainly one of the most thrilling seasons yet, and our members had a blast! The spring pep band was a really tight-knit group that really bonded over a difficult season. While dealing with Cornell funding and planning a trip to Manchester with 3-days notice hasn’t been ideal, seeing the reminiscing and smiles from all the band members makes the work worth it.
Things cooled down during the bring, as lacrosse had a somewhat middling performance. That’s not to say the pep band was struggling though. With the help of our social chairs, we were really able to build a pep band community. Our movie afternoons, bowling nights, and red / white crumpet events were all super well attended and gave people a place to relax after a difficult semester. We also finally started fundraising again, making a substantial profit on our stickers and selling quite a few pep shirts.
One of the major concerns at the start of the season was recruitment. We lost a ton of passionate seniors in the spring, and I was worried about the strength of the pep band. Amazingly though, we not only replaced our seniors, but we grew in size by over 20 members! This freshman class has been one of the most dedicated groups I’ve seen in the pep band. It’s exciting seeing competitive races for pep events – we had almost 100 signups for Harvard hockey – and a filled pep room during rehearsals. The incoming class has both embraced the traditions of old and made their own identities, and I’m excited to see how they grow in the coming years.
This fall, we had a slow start with the marching season, but embraced our goal of attending a varied selection of sports with frequent visits to women’s soccer and field hockey events. Of course, the hockey season has begun with a bang, with us being the last undefeated team in NCAA hockey. After a rough stretch, we just upset #5 Boston University at MSG in one of the most intense games of the season.
As we prepare for the final small trip of the season to Colgate, I could not be prouder of where the pep band is at. We’re bigger and better than we have been in years, and I’m super excited to see where we can go from here. Being pep manager has been a dream come true, and I can’t wait to see what happens next as I wave my arms from below (hopefully in time)!
Thank you all for an amazing season, and hope to see you back soon!
Max “Slice” Scialabba, ’25
Hi everybody!
We’re Dubs and Catherine, and we’re the Pep Band’s Fall 2023 conductors! It’s been a pleasure to work with the band throughout the semester to sound even bigger and even better while engaging in silly shenanigans. We’ve won all the home games we’ve played for Hockey (except the one from Cambridge that we don’t mention), including the tense Dartmouth 2-2 shootout win, double victory against Minnesota Duluth, and 6-1 victory against Toronto Metropolitan. Our first away trip of the semester was to MSG for Red Hot Hockey, where we played and emerged victorious against BU in a 2-1 win! As of writing this, we have yet to take on Colgate for a nice two-game weekend to wrap up the semester. We also played for a few women’s soccer, field hockey, sprint football, men’s basketball, and women’s hockey games, the latter of which has had an INCREDIBLE season!
We’ve had such a fun semester that flew by so quickly! It’s been great to see rehearsals so full of people looking for a fun place to play some fabulous and funky tunes. Looking forward to a great spring semester for even more wins and excitement!
Peace and happy holidays!
Dubs “Ian Shane is my literal father” Kaprielian
Catherine “shake your silly string cans” Frank
Our sections have done an incredible job this year in maintaining the spirit of the band and welcoming so many new members into the organization. Our wonderful section leaders have put together blurbs to update you all on the status of the band!
Flutes: 2023 has been a flonderful year for the Big Red Flutes! In the spring we continued the tradition of the Flalentine’s Concert, there’s a video up on the BRMB historian YouTube if you’d like to see what we played. And of course we had a gorgeous wedding to once again recommit ourselves to wives the Clarinets. In the crafty spirit of the flutes, we handmade our Slope Day shirts, so each one is unique and customized to each individual’s taste. We concluded the semester with Floot Formal as always, but we went for brunch this time! This year’s round of auditions resulted in a Flovely and dedicated freshman class. In the fall we revamped our weekly emails to make them a more colorful, easier to read, newsletter format. The flutes also got added into the third quarter cheer rotations and have our own little cheer sheets now! Arranged by our lovely Izzy Cowan. Thank you for your continued support, we always look forward to seeing the alumni at homecoming and our away trips throughout the year!
Clarinets: What an amazing semester for the clarinets! We got to meet a truly astonishing number of new members at auditions and First Night this fall and have had such a blast getting to know them and introducing them to the traditions of the best section in the Ivy League! Despite quite a lot of rain, we made a lot of treasured memories this year traveling to Yale, Harvard, and Penn for away games. It was almost everyone’s first time marching at Yale and Harvard, and we were so excited to be back! (And regardless of if the football team won or lost, the band always wins). It was so much fun to see many of our fantastic alumni at homecoming, away games, and the Quincy Market concert. Outside of the football stadium, we carried on many traditions by baking pies, making memories with other sections, and making friendship bracelets at Taylor Swift Night. We want to thank the seniors who have been with the Nets since 2020 and welcome the new members who will make us proud for years to come! We couldn’t be happier to have led this amazing group of people through an unforgettable season. So gather nuts & berries, watch out for that tree, and always give MORE SASS for the Big Red Clarinets!
For the glory of the pack,
The Nets <3
Saxes:
What a semester for the Saxes!
We entered the season with a bang in our fresh new Big Red Saxes shirts. We strutted onto the field with our sax hats on and made them an official part of the uniform. Our drip has never been better!
We saw a large number of sax seniors go last season (and with them, the chokehold that Glee had us in), which led to the merging of ranks J and L into JL and the (brief) hiatus of rank &. But our numbers have been as strong as ever thanks to our iconic, amazing batch of new members! Like, soooo many new members. Seeing all their faces as we busted out our usual dances and tricks at First Night and Special Rehearsal was priceless. The Stewart Park Picnic marked the 21st year of the sax pyramid, which we proceeded to do again with our slovely alumni at Homecoming! Beyond our hacky-sack, sax tag, and minty cocoa-filled rehearsals, we’re still quirked-up as ever. In any given week, we’re getting into shenanigans during Nerd S*** Wednesdays (r.i.p. Work Wednesdays), quoting Dance Moms, and loving/hating Meena from Sing. Also, we had some action-packed away trips to Yale, Harvard, and Penn. We even got to hang out in Faneuil Marketplace while we were in Boston! It may have rained at almost every game this season, but that didn’t dampen our spirits!
The saxes continue to sound amazing, as always. But more importantly, it’s so heartwarming to see our rag-tag group of saxes grow bigger. This year, we are a pretty young section, with a lot of underclassmen. Seeing how close we’ve grown to each other, how we support, uplift, and sometimes roast one another, it truly feels like a family. We’re so proud of the saxes, from the nervous first-years to the seasoned seniors. The moments we’ve shared constantly remind us why we joined band.
Slove today, slove tomorrow, slove forever.
Horns: The Horns have been thriving as always! We welcomed SO MANY new horns into the section after auditions, and we’ve been testing the limits of how many people can fit into a single rank ever since. Seriously, I think we had ten or eleven Rank H* members at a rehearsal once. I’ve heard a lot of very kind words about how great the horns sound. From our front-and-center soli in Isn’t She Lovely to our fast rips in 24K Magic and A Sky Full of Stars, we’ve consistently reminded the audience what the heck a mellophone is anyway. We’ve welcomed (stolen) lots of new horns from other sections as well; a few bandies play horn at Pep Band even if they don’t march with us. We even had seven horns at MSG! With our rapidly growing section and a heartwarming turnout of alumni at Homecoming, it truly feels like our section is 8 miles wide. We’ve been sure to continue traditions like Horny Valentines, Jractice, chicken wings, post-rehearsal circle-ups, pickling, buying ducks, and having the best parade routine in the band. We’re also happy to have brought back weekly horn dinners, and we even had a Hornsgiving before Thanksgiving break! We’re excited to keep growing and keep the spirit up! WAHHH and Go Red!
Trumpets: Hey y’all! Not that it’d come as a surprise, but the Big Red Trumpets had an amazing year! We got to welcome a massive group of freshmen and other new members into our section, and we honestly couldn’t ask for a better cohort to join us this year. On top of that, we even had a ton of members across other sections grab some trumpets and join our ranks for some of our shows. Consequently, we got to keep Rank N alive and thriving for another season. Besides our marching ranks being packed, our pep attendance was through the roof, too (if you wanna hear more about how many pep points our section has, ask any of the 18 trumpets!!! who went to MSG this year). This year, we hopped on Bus 7 and rode to Yale, Harvard, and Penn while singing verses, telling stories, scavenger hunting, ad libbing, and more. Sectionals were held so we could play more of the cheers in our folder, and we got some sounding pretty crisp. Also, we welcomed so many alumni back for Grand Hauscoming– we loved hearing all your stories and are glad to be carrying on your favorite traditions. We had an eventful year, and we’re looking forward to another with plenty of 10:23s, inverse Rodneys, crumpets, games of lap tag, push-ups, mooses, bandana and sunglasses wearing, and most importantly, playing loud and high!
Drumline:
Drumline has been doing quite well for themselves. And by that we mean absolutely crushing it. We were excited to welcome new members from every class during auditions in August, discovering their talent and unique personalities. Many of them demonstrated exceptional enthusiasm, with some even earning positions on Bandstaph. The year was marked by memorable experiences, such as go-karting, carving pumpkins from Indian Creek Farm, and navigating a corn maze at Stoughton Farm. Our first away trips this year were to Yale and Harvard, which the band hasn’t been to since 2019. A stop in Boston, the day after the Harvard game, included a parade at Faneuil Hall and exploring the city. Luckily during our third trip to UPenn, the drumline and band had much better interactions with UPenn’s Greer Cheeseman III. Even though 6 of our 8 performances were rainy, we maintained high spirits because we are so tough. This toughness helped us endure everything that came our way, from blisters, cadencing approximately 100 times at Harvard, tummy aches, and being a little sleepy. Through it all the drumline has grown so much together, and made close friendships within the line, and with the rest of the band. We are so proud of what our drumline has accomplished this semester and can’t wait to see what happens next!
Bones: This year, the bones continued to grow, thrive, and drink plenty of milk to stay strong. Our bone family welcomed a great class of new freshmen bones and tones with unprecedented chill vibes. From homecoming, to bone suicides, to Happy Bus Shenanigans, we had a great time at rehearsal and games. We also brushed off a few old bone cheers that haven’t been played in a while, including a new fan favorite: Sail. Attendance and enthusiasm have been super high, even at music rehearsal (we actually showed up!) and we’re looking forward to a great spring semester!
Guard: Guard had an amazing season. Even though there were many rainy games and concerts (ahem Boston), we always managed to not only survive but thrive in our performances and get those guard gains- and as they say, a wet flag builds character. We incorporated many tosses into our routines this year and thankfully we were able to carry out (almost) all of them despite the wind, rain, or what other conditions it happened to be. We were even brave enough to pick up the rifles this year during guard rehearsal and learn some drop spins along with attempting some flag tosses like the parallel and 45. Some of us learned faster than others. We were even forced to create a new guard move ending, a modified alexis carousel ending (“effed up ending”) when we were challenged with a six count ending. Wow this season went by quickly. We hope to see everyone again for the next homecoming and our away trips, and hopefully you will see us bring back rifle!
Glove,
Colorguard
Tubas: The Tubas had an amazing year! We welcomed an outstanding group of new tubae who will carry on the spirit of our section for years to come. At rehearsal, we goofed around and played our music as loud as we could, sometimes attempting to launch footballs from our bells or any other projectiles we could find. Before rehearsal, we met almost every Tuesday for dinner at Appel. On Halloween, we scared some folks with TEN tubae chiming 13 times at a deafening volume, then serenaded an adoring crowd with classics like Midnight Song and Alma Minor from in front of the clock tower. While the games were often rainy, the tuba spirit never tired as we danced to block traffic and played our favorite songs for the most committed fans. We are looking forward to next year!
