Hey alumni!
What a wild year it has been! This past marching band season has provide
d us with so many fond memories that we will remember for the rest of our lives. From marching “Good 4 U” at Homecoming, to walking down the streets of Manhattan for Sy Katz, this semester was filled with so many new adventures and flovely experiences. We were so happy to welcome back alumni for reunion and had great turnout at the Homecoming luncheon, events that haven’t happened since 2019! We could not have asked for a better way to end our final season in the BRMB and are fortunate to have such a supportive community to spend it with.
We’re super excited to see what the future holds for the BRMB and can’t wait to see what the 2023 Alumni Relations chairs will do next year.
With flove, your 2022 Alumni Relations Chairs,
Megan Chang and Justin Han
And now…presenting the only REAL Band Notes in the Ivy League!
Hey Alumni!
I am back after an exciting season full of new experiences and par
ades in NYC! From the beginning of August, until our last game in November, the band has been hard at work, accepting over 100 new members, traveling to new places everyone in the band has never been before, persevering through tough situations, celebrating in moments of glory, honoring those who have passed, and having the time of our lives in the only REAL marching band in the Ivy League!
Our first show follows a couple in their journey and pursuit of love. We called it the “Love Show”. I put this in quotations because it is really never that simple! The show starts off with the two parties of the couple sharing that they will never break each other’s hearts with our rendition of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee, featuring a trumpet and bone duet in the beginning. After the first half of the football game, our couple finds themselves going back on their promises and breaking up :(. We kicked off our halftime show with “Good 4 U” by Olivia Rodrigo, showing the anger the couple feels towards each other after this breakup. But in the end, our couple will always have each other on their minds, rounding out our halftime performance with our homecoming song “Georgia on My Mind” by Ray Charles. I am so glad this was the homecoming song this year since it is one of, if not, my favorite songs in the folder and the song I conducted during Senior Concert. We played this show for Homecoming and against Harvard at our Friday Night Lights game.
Our second show of the year was called the A Night Out show. This show took the audience through the experience a typical college student has during a night out. Starting off with our Pre Show, Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” set the scene. With this song, we wanted to show the excitement we typically have right before or at the beginning of a night out, yearning to find somebody to dance with! For halftime, we are at the party and ready to get loud with our rendition of “Let’s Get Loud” by Jennifer Lopez. This song featured an awesome drum break written by our 2022 drum captain Peter Bell (‘24) and a dance break choreographed by our 2022 show committee Nina “Pauws” Ellison (‘25). Finishing off our night out, we played “We Are Young” by fun. At the end of the night, everyone is sentimental the night is over but we must remember, we are young and have so many more amazing nights ahead of us! We played Show 2 at home against Lehigh, who was a pleasure to play alongside and we are so glad came and visited us in Ithaca. After this particular game, the son of the last football coach who led an undefeated football team asked the band if we could play our post-game concert at a tree in the parking lot which was planted in honor of his father. Of course, we said we were glad to and played for him and the team of football alumni who were on the 6-0 undefeated team! It was a beautiful moment that I will never forget, conducting Cornell Medley and all of the alumni knew every lyric to every song and swaying alongside the football members as they cried in remembrance of their late coach. This group of alumni come to every home football game and are actually the owners of the Cornell Van the trumpets stand on top of during the Alma Mater at our Tailgate performances.
We also played Show 2 on our first away trip of the season at Brown! This was the first time everyone in the band had traveled to Brown for marching band. Though this brought some challenges, it was so exciting visiting a new school and playing with a really cool group of people in the Brown band. That was also my very first time in Rhode Island!
Our third show was the Boy Bands Through the Ages show. We hit three different boy bands from three different parts of the first (20 or so) years of our lives. Keeping in chronological order, our pregame show featured “Bye, Bye, Bye” by NSYNC, and our halftime show starting with “Drag Me Down” by One Direction and “Dynamite” by BTS. The idea of having a boy band-themed show floated around as a suggestion for the past few years, so we were all very excited to pull it off this year. These high-energy songs provided the perfect pick me up that was very much needed near the middle of our marching season. We had the honor of playing Show 3 at Princeton, which again, was everyone in the band’s first time going there for marching band. I also had the pleasure of inviting my high school band director to come to see us, since I am from New Jersey. While she was surprised by the lack of rigidity and discipline, she kept raving about how much everyone seemed to be genuinely having fun and had so much Big Red Spirit, which is truly what the BRMB is all about. While the Brown trip and the Princeton trip were back-to-back weekends, we still had amazing attendance and everyone was excited to continue to support the football team and make amazing memories. We also played Show 3 a week later at home against UPenn, rounding off our performances of Show 3.
The final show we performed this year was the Curtain Call show. This was the senior’s last show ie. our curtain call. This show featured songs from musicals, ending the year with a bang. We welcomed the audience to our last show with the banger of the song “The Greatest Show” from The Greatest Showman. This song featured a circus tent formation with the tent opening and our 2022 guard captain Skyler Krouse (‘23) performing a breathtaking flag solo with two beautiful swing flags. For the halftime show, we played our rendition of “Another Day of Sun” from La La Land arranged by our very own Bobby “Duck” Haig (‘25). This is one of my favorite songs from a musical and I am glad it was the last song I conducted on the field. For the senior song, the band performed a mashup of the songs “I Lived” by One Republic and “Thank You for the Music” by ABBA arranged by me! I feel so honored to have arranged our senior song this year and I couldn’t have asked for a better class to dance around the field with and sway with during the Alma Mater. While we only played this show once since Columbia was not allowing us to go on the field, the senior concert was a perfect way to wrap up the season.
But this was not the end of our season! As a special epilogue, I had the honor of leading the 50th Sy Katz parade in NYC. This experience was so surreal for me. I remember following the band parade through the city in 2018 before I got accepted into Cornell hoping to one day be a part of such an amazing organization. It honestly feels like a dream, calling the band up to attention, parading down 44th street, and conducting the Evening Song for the very last time in front of the Cornell Club. That experience is one I will never forget and cannot wait to watch the band do it all over again in two years.
It is so hard to believe that my season has already come to an end. I am so grateful and honored I have been able to serve as your Drum Major this year. I have had some of my best memories and experiences at Cornell and in my life during this season, and I would not trade it for the world. Thank you, Bella, section leaders, the Saxophone section, show committee, all of bandstaph, and most importantly YOU, for giving me a life-changing experience and giving me a place I have called home for the past four years. I cannot wait to C U far above Cayuga’s waters next year at homecoming!
GO RED DAMMIT!!!!!
~ Zack Kozma
Hey Alumni!!
My name is Bella Burgess and I served as the 2022 Head Manager
of the Big Red Marching Band! I am a senior majoring in Global and Public Health Sciences, and minoring in Health Policy and French in the College of Human Ecology. It has been an honor and a joy to lead the band this past year and contribute to the magic of the BRMB.
We kicked off the season with three performances for Big Red Welcome Fest in Ho Plaza, and welcomed many wonderful new members that make me very excited for the future of the band. This year, we held First Night in the Big Red Barn and enjoyed some pizza from the always delicious Pudgies. Shortly after the semester began, the band had the honor of playing at two different weddings. Ahead of the football season, we also performed at CU Downtown which was hosted again this year for the first time since 2019. Before the first football game, we joined the football team at their practice and rehearsed Cornell Victorious with them at the request of Coach Archer.
We had an incredible football season this year and the Homecoming game against Yale was a wonderful way to kick it off! We were so excited to welcome everyone home and onto the field with us for the first time in three years. In the following weeks we played a friday night game against Harvard, and a Saturday game against Lehigh. At the end of October, we traveled to Brown and Princeton for the first time since 2018. Our victory against Brown and the sunny weather during both of the trips were highlights of the season. The next two weeks we played at home against UPenn and Dartmouth. The weekend before Thanksgiving, we traveled to NYC for the game against Columbia and the Sy Katz parade. We unfortunately were not permitted to perform on the field during pregame or halftime at Columbia but luckily the excitement of the Sy Katz parade more than made up for it. Since the last Sy Katz parade was held in 2018, none of the current undergraduates had performed in the parade before. It was truly a magical experience and one of the most special things I have been part of during my time at Cornell. The Sy Katz parade was a wonderful way to wrap up the season and celebrate what being at Cornell, and being in band means to all of us.
We kicked off our uniform pillow fundraiser this fall after a few years of hard work by many bandstaph members and alumni. We have continued to center creating a friendly and inclusive environment in everything we do to foster a warm and welcoming environment. We have strengthened our relationships with the Cheer and Dance teams and are excited to continue working with them to foster spirit in the Cornell community.
As I look back over the year, I’m surprised by the number of “firsts” I’ve had during my last year at Cornell. This year has been our first full “normal year” since 2019, and I’m happy to say the band is as strong and energetic as ever. We would not be where we are without the persistence of previous band leadership, and the support and guidance of many band alumni. A huge thank you to Zack, Zakir, and Seven for being incredible leaders and advocates for the band this year. I am so grateful to have been part of such a supportive and dedicated team.
Being in the BRMB and being Head Manager has truly shaped my time at Cornell. I am so excited to see future leaders take on this role, and watch the band grow and change.
Thank you band!
Bella “not because we have to, but because we care” Burgess
The Fall semester has seen a lot of action for the pep band as we continue to rev back up to full speed after the 2021 Covid year. We started the season with Women’s soccer and volleyball. Many band members had never attended a Cornell volleyball game before and we had a lot
of fun! They’re a little long, but the team really enjoyed us being there! I’ve recently caught some flack for forgetting to ask the volleyball team for pizza, apparently, that’s a thing that usually happens. I guess we’ll have to rely on the lacrosse fans in the Spring for our pep pizza fix. There were numerous challenging conflicts with marching events that kept us from performing for the Men’s soccer team who had an excellent season, making it all the way to the third round of the NCAA tournament. Our conductors this year, Elliot Overholt ‘23 and Harris Greenstein ‘23, did a great job keeping us in time and learning on the fly as we relearned what had been lost to the annals of time (read as covid year really has been throwing us for a loop).
We had our second annual Red/White Crumpets game where the band both plays crumpets and plays cheers for the people playing crumpets (if you don’t know what crumpets is, google ‘New York Field Crumpets’). We also got to see the return of Red/White hockey which was a great introduction to our Lynah antics for new members. Outside of sporting events, many members have been bonding over dinners at Okenshields after pep rehearsals and sitting into a hockey lecture delivered by one of our newly elected Spring ‘23 conductors, David ‘Dubs’ Kaprielian ‘25, all while enjoying ice cream and decorating their music folders. We also have an arrangers’ day workshop coming up where we’ll celebrate the last day of classes and work on some student arrangements that may be put to the test next semester!
Pre-Season hockey gave us a taste of the Lynah atmosphere as the team continued their unbeaten preseason record against Ottawa and Guelph. They had a rough start to the season with 6 away games resulting in a 2-4 opening record. For their last away weekend, we got to travel to Saint Lawrence to watch Cornell win big, handing them their first home loss of the season. Unfortunately, we were not able to go to Clarkson due to the last home football game of the season. After a bit of a rough start, however, they came home hungry for wins and are now rolling on a 4 game unbeaten streak. Last weekend at MSG saw a decisive win over #6 ranked UConn, and we’re hoping that energy gets carried into the home games against Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend!
Men’s basketball has had a strong start to the season sitting at 5-1, and we’re excited to make it to their games next semester! The women’s basketball team has had ups and downs, but we believe they’re on an upswing heading into the end of the semester. Looking ahead to the Spring semester, we’re extremely excited to rebuild our relationship with wrestling, cheer on both basketball teams, and get into the lacrosse season! We also have a handful of trips planned! January 27th and 28th we’ll travel to Dartmouth and then Harvard to start the semester off with a band. We’ll also head to Colgate for a day trip on February 11th. Our last planned trip of the season has us trekking out to Rhode Island and Connecticut to face Brown and Yale on February 24th and 25th. Hopefully, we’ll see some strong playoff runs from a number of teams as well!
We have had a great time serving as your 2022 Pep Band Managers and we can’t wait to pass along the torch and enjoy the Spring season!
Peace & Copious Amounts of Pep,
Aiden Thomas ‘23 and Zakir Ahmad ‘23
Hi All!
We are Elliot (they/them) and Harris, and we had the pleasure of serving as the Big Red Pep Band’s Fall 2022 Conductors. We had a great fall semester with the first normal pep band fall sinc
e 2019. We enjoyed cheering on soccer, volleyball, basketball, and hockey this fall. Our trip to MSG was lots of fun, besides wiping the floor with UConn (6-0), we got lots of playing time and had a concert to serenade all of NYC with our favorite tunes. The biggest change from the perspective of the conductors this semester was the addition of three new songs to our folder! Catch us playing Mr. Brightside, The Safety Dance, and Dancing Queen at future events. With a band still recovering from covid numbers and distribution wise, we are sounding fantastic! I hope you can come listen to us play somewhere soon!
Handing off the Hard Hat,
Elliot “learning trumpet” Overholt ’23
Harris “celebrating a decade of marching band” Greenstein ’23
As we progressed through the season, our sections have done an incredible job 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!
Hey alumni! The Flutes had a flamazing year! We continued Flalentine’s, this year going back to the brilliant venue of Willard Straight helping to raise money for local charities. We ended the spring semester with a flovely flute formal at the one and only Ithaca Applebees, and we took a bunch of flotos in our most flancy attire. Auditions and first night were super flenergetic with all of our new members! Performing again at CU Downtown for the first time since fall of 2019 was flectacular and it was great to play for the Ithaca community. During the marching season, we were able to flute-up so many people since the football team scored so much! The Flutes also got a new Section Crest courtesy of the flovely drumline’s brilliant artistic skills. We ended our season in NYC marching the Sy Katz parade and playing at the Cornell Club!
The Clarinets had an awesome semester marching and hanging out with all of our members (new and old)!! We welcomed many new members in the first few weeks of the semester and watche
d Rank Z Fails, Flaminoes, and random high school projects. We kept our winning streak for the scavenger hunt up and got cookies for the home game against Harvard as our prize. On the field, we continued our traditions of breaking our pelvises, squatting when the team scores, and making pie for the last home game. We had an incredible season going on all three away trips this season (first time since 2019!) and parading through New York City for Sy Katz where we saw many of you cheering us on. Back home, we renewed our vows with the flutes, watched a lot of Taylor Swift music videos, and painted along to a Bob Ross video. We look forward to playing with you again at Homecoming and seeing you on away trips next fall!
Hot damn! What a semester it has been for the Saxes, aka the GREATEST section in the ivy-league (I mean come on, the drum major is a sax after all)! We had the privilege of welcoming a truly incredi
ble batch of new members this year during auditions, including a record-breaking number of people who had never played the sax before (and I must say, they’ve been sounding awesome since day 1!). The semester continued on strong with first night and special rehearsal, letting new and old members alike bust out some killer dance moves in true sax fashion (parade for the barbz!!). At the Stewart Park picnic, we created our usual sax pyramid, and this marked the 20th year of this tradition; not only that, but we were able to do it again with so many alums at our first REAL homecoming since 2019 
Outside of our minty-cocoa filled rehearsals, we’ve also been as quirky and tight-knit as ever, enjoying some not-so-productive Work Wednesdays, good eats, and also a whole lot of Glee (oof, now I’ve lost the glame). We’ve been a fan favorite at games as well, playing a lot of new student-written cheers (we’ve even got a bit with the drumline now!) and also giving Ryan Lombardi a sax hat at long last. Beyond this, we had three sax-tastic away trips to Brown, Princeton, and most recently Columbia for our first Sy Katz parade since 2018, CRAZY! As good as the section has sounded this semester though, I’m most happy that our silly goofy sax family has grown bigger, it truly warms my heart <3 It’s been really touching both to see that the seniors have stayed so close after 4 years, and to see the new members start to form that same bond with each other. Every time I hang out with this rag-tag group of saxophonists, I am reminded of just how lucky I am to be surrounded by the best section in the world
This year the Horns continued to recover after having after a couple of hard covid year
s. We introduced four new members into our section after having 1-2 freshmen per year, and for the first time since 2019 everyone in the section got to meet all our alumni at homecoming as well as at away events like the Sy Katz parade. Additionally we made sure to preserve traditions like pranking each other with chicken wings in our bells, our love for Waluigi, and chanting at the end of rehearsal in addition to new rehearsal traditions like duck duck goose. We have also started to play bone cheers after we enjoy our third quarter snacks at football games. We are excited to keep up the spirit and have another great year!
From First Night and Homecoming to Sy Katz, the Big Red Trumpets had an incredible
year. We added an outstanding cohort of freshmen to our ranks, and continued to represent as the best section in the Ivy League. We added a new rank to keep up with our rapidly growing section, and had each rank filled to the brim with members and spirit throughout the entire season. Bus 7 carried us to Brown, Princeton, and Columbia, and with us, we brought energy, laughter, and some pretty sweet melodies. In addition to the marching band, our presence frequently dominates the pep band, where the Trumpets collectively have the most points by a long shot. Outside of our regularly scheduled band events, the section is closer than ever. We study, cook, stargaze, and make marvelous memories along the way. Catch us at Homecoming next year, on any of our away trips, or at home in Ithaca anytime! You’ll be sure to feel our infectious energy.
Thanks to our dedication to taking calcium supplements, we were 
able to strengthen our section this year with a fat, healthy class of new Bones! This year we celebrated our most normal year yet, which included an absolutely bone-ful GRAND BONECOMING. We played some new cheers, including Wellerman and CBat (featuring the horns), and generally had moderate to great attendance at all rehearsals and games. (Music rehearsal doesn’t count as rehearsal, of course). For the second year in a row we will be losing a large senior class, but da bones are in good hands and are ready for a great spring semester!
To our many adoring fans, you’ll be happy to know that ninja Pe
rcussion has been killing it this year! Everyone pitched in to make this year something truly special. None of it would have been possible without the hard work and fearless leadership of our subsection leaders, as well as hard work of many others! Together we did a whole heck of a lot! We took the opportunity to go bowling, apple picking, pumpkin picking, paintballing, and of course watched many movies and shows! Each of the new members are wonderful and it was a joy bringing them into the fold of the section this semester! Now, on the field, we brought the hype with some fun parts, sick visuals, and a kick-butt drum break! Those weren’t the only fun things we added as we also brought in some new cheers! (You know it’s a hype cheer when the saxes want in on it too!)
Fall came and went too quickly, but that’s part of what makes it so special. Once again, we’ve been killing it this year, and we’re excited to see where the future takes us.
Until next time,
Respectfully, the Drumline.
The Guard had a fantastic season! In addition 
to performing four super fun shows, we ate many snacks, including but not limited to, brownies, cookies, summer rolls, bean dip, and even a whole cake! We were thrilled to visit Brown, Princeton, and Columbia and most excitingly, for the Colorguard, this year was everyone’s first Sy Katz parade! I think it’s safe to say we had a blast parading through and performing in New York City! We even welcomed a new guard move to our repertoire, the Heather’s 3. We hope everyone is doing well and we cannot wait to see you all next season for Homecoming and at our away trips!
Much glove,
The Colorguard <3
The Tubas had a fantastic marching season! We welcomed a
n awesome group of new tubae who will surely carry on the spirit of the section. At rehearsal, we enjoyed throwing around frisbees, plastic balls, field hockey balls, or whatever other aerodynamic distractions we could find while the rest of the band learned drill. We certainly startled some people at Tuba Halloween after climbing 161 steps to the top of the clocktower, where we chimed 13 times and played such classics as Alma Minor and Minor Moose. By the end of the season, our left shoulders were as strong as our spirits marching at the front of the Sy Katz ’31 Parade. Until Homecoming 2023!