Hey Alumni!
My name is Claudia and I’m a sophomore studying Biomedical Engineering. I’m a member of the trumpet and percussion sections as well as a librarian and equipment chair. My name is Sterling and I’m a freshman studying Computer Science in the College of Engineering. I’m in the trumpet section and a historian this year. We’re both so excited to be your 2023 Alumni Relations chairs!
Giving Day this year is March 16th! We will be having a livestream concert again so look out for the link closer to Giving Day. Help us “Live For The Music” at Big Red Bands | 2023 Giving Day. We couldn’t do it without you and your support!
Feel free to reach out to us at cms368@cornell.edu and smc453@cornell.edu! We look forward to (hopefully) meeting you at Reunion and Homecoming this year!
Peace and aardvarks,
Claudia “Crash” Slivovsky ‘25
Sterling “Limbo” Chargois ‘26
And now…presenting the only REAL Band Notes in the Ivy League!
Hey Alumni!
My name is Nina, but most people in the band know me as Pauws. I’m beyond excited to serve as your 2023 Drum Major! I’m a sophomore from Sturbridge, Massachusetts pursuing a major in psychology with a minor in theater. After graduation, I plan to go to law school with a focus in family law. Last year, I was your Show Committee Chair. I loved helping to run rehearsals, teach the band a new dance break, and learn how much work actually goes on behind the scenes.
Speaking of shows and music…I have a couple of goals for the upcoming year! I’d love to bring our new sound to older songs that we haven’t played as much. This will ensure that we don’t lose any traditions following the graduation of the last pre-COVID class of bandies. We’ll be working on this during spring music rehearsals. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some of them onto the Giving Day livestream this year! I’m also looking forward to working with this year’s Show Committee to build shows that include a wide range of genres and artists, as well as introducing new music to the folder that really highlights our band’s overwhelming talent.
New member retention over the course of this year is essential. Like I mentioned earlier, the class of 2023 is the last pre-COVID class, and they’re leaving behind some big shoes to fill. I recently held a section leader forum to discuss recruitment and to establish open communication. It was refreshing to hear everyone’s ideas and get a better understanding of the band’s leaders so early in the season. Our Special Events Coordinators have terrific plans to get people out of their shells, and I can’t wait to see them come to fruition!
I’m looking forward to traveling to the Ivies that we haven’t visited since 2019. I have no sense of direction, so it’ll definitely be an adventure navigating their campuses. This season is going to be incredible, and we’re excited to share our music with you all. I’m sure going to miss playing my trumpet, but I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be on the other side of the Moose…
I can’t wait to meet you all at reunion and Homecoming!
Nina “Pauws” Ellison ‘25
Hello Alumni!
I’m Beyan Kesselly, and this year I will be the 2023 Head Manager. Previously, I served as one of the 2022 Horn Section Leaders, but I am excited to take a bigger role in band leadership this year. I am a Junior from Newark, Delaware that studies Biological Sciences in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
This year I have a lot of plans for the marching band. Last year the previous Head Manager, Bella Burgess, split up the Philanthropy Coordinator and Diversity Chair into two different positions, the Philanthropy Coordinator and the Diversity and Inclusivity Chair. This year I plan on further defining the role to ensure that we are promoting diversity and making the band a safe place for everyone. We plan to have the Diversity Chairs work with the pub chairs to educate our followers and community about the diverse groups that represent our band. Also we will be bringing back training for bandstaph to ensure that we are properly promoting diversity in the band. Lastly, we will aim to either host events for different underrepresented and/or marginalized groups or promote events around campus for these groups. As a member of multiple marginalized groups, I want to further build communities in the band for people like me.
Additionally, we want to promote retention since we are losing a large portion of our band when the class of 2023 graduates. I plan to host personal events with our Drum Major, Nina “Pauws” Ellison similar to the HM/DM breakfast on north campus. Additionally, I want to expand the Special Events Coordinator role to host more events for our band community. We will also continue with the uniform fundraiser by shipping out the uniform jacket pillows and making plans for the uniform pants and drum major uniform.
In terms of our marching season, this year we will be returning to Penn again. We will also bring back the Yale and Harvard Trips. It will be the entire band’s first time going to these schools for marching band as the marching band has not gone to Yale or Harvard since 2019. I plan to bring back our performance at Herald Square Park in New York City and continue to do our Faneuil Hall performance in Boston again.
I am looking forward to the amazing year we will be having this year, and to meet you all at our many events. Stay tuned for more information on our Giving Day performance this year!
Beyan Kesselly ‘24
Hey BRBAA!
My name is Max “Slice” Scialabba, your 2023 Pep Band Manager! I’m a sophomore trombone player and former Pep Treasurer from Westfield, NJ, majoring in math, computer science, and physics.
I’ve entered my term riding the momentum we’ve gathered over the last years. Attendance is the highest it’s been in several years – we’re routinely filling up hockey games and bringing over 70 people to rehearsal. I’m really excited to continue fostering the strong community I’ve seen grow during my time here.
I’m writing this in the wake of our second trip to Colgate, and while our play on the ice has been a bit disappointing while we’re away (a win and two losses), people have been really enjoying themselves away. One of the more exciting things for me has been the number of freshmen at events – we were able to bring over ten new members to our first overnight trip to Dartmouth / Harvard. In the works are another trip to Yale / Brown in two weeks and possible playoffs for both hockey and basketball.
At home, our weekends have been packed juggling the winter sports. While women’s hockey and men’s basketball haven’t had favorable schedules, we’ve gone to support them whenever we can. Home hockey is just as strong as ever – a 10-1 routing of Union will show that – and the band is just as enthusiastic as they can be when I forget the newspaper in the office every other game. We’ve clinched a home playoff series, so there are still plenty of opportunities to see us perform in Ithaca!
We’re also trying to reach out to other sports and give our members a chance to perform outside of the traditional hockey. We had a two meet homestand for #5 in the nation’s men’s wrestling, where we got to see the best wrestler in the country sit on a guy for three minutes (Go Yianni!). I’ve heard from tennis, track, and polo with interest in us performing or even just getting to interact with teams. We’ve never felt closer to the Cornell community while keeping our individual spirit.
I’m looking forward to continuing the interest and keeping the pep band as fresh and exciting as the traditions will allow. Hope to see you all at an event or just to say hi 
Here’s to a Big Red Year!
Max “Slice” Scialabba, ‘25
Hey Olds!
We are Olive and Dubs, and we’re the Pep Band’s Spring ’23 Conductors!
This semester has already been so exciting, watching hockey take down #1 Quinnipiac and thwomp Union 10-1, not to mention shipping up (across?) to Harvard and playing together with the Dartmouth and Colgate bands! We’ve also played at a few wrestling meets and women’s hockey games which were super fun. We’re also super excited for the rest of the semester,
with our last away trip coming up to Brown and Yale, starting to go to men’s and women’s lacrosse and basketball games, and (knock on wood) some post-season hockey action!
The pep band is sounding incredible this season, and we are just so happy to be working with Slice and the whole band. We can’t wait to hype up some crowds, watch our teams win, and get up to as many assorted shenanigans as possible!
Love,
Olive “your friendly neighborhood horn screamer” Faber
Dubs“resident through the fire and flames devotee” Kaprielian
Hey Alumni! 
My name is Patrick Thieblemont and I am one of the current drum captains. For those of you who don’t know, the Cornell Indoor Drumline (CUID) is a student-run competitive percussion ensemble that performs a marching floor show featuring both a front ensemble and a battery in the New York State Percussion Circuit, with competitions taking place over the winter. Last year, we took 1st place at NYSPC Championships, and we hope to continue our success this season!
This year’s indoor drumline’s show, titled Wonderland, is based on Alice in Wonderland, a journey from reality to a strange alternate world and back again. We got creative with our costumes this year, with the front ensemble acting as the tea party participants, while each battery subsection dresses up as a different suit of cards. Keep an eye out for Jiho Cha, center snare and battery captain, who will be acting as our Queen of Hearts! We will also have an Alice student performer on the floor, moving around and interacting with the battery throughout the show. We are so excited to perform at our first competition at Cicero North Syracuse High School on March 4th!
If you are interested in learning more about us or would just like to see what we do, check us out at http://www.cuindoordrumline.com/.
Come see us:
Show 1: Cicero North Syracuse HS, Sat 3/4
Show 2: East Syracuse Minoa HS, Sat 3/18
Show 3: Victor HS, Sun 3/26
NYSPC Championship: Gates Chili HS, Sun 4/2
Wish us luck!
Patrick Thieblemont ‘25
Hey Alumni!
I’m so happy to be writing to you again after our incredible season! We put in so much work over the past year to improve our sound, our marching, and our energy! Our retention this past year was really impressive. We only lost a few new members per section, some even less! We also picked up a few latecomers after ClubFest.
This season, we welcomed a lot of change and collaboration. In the spring, we were contacted by the Black Student Majorette Ensemble, the Scarlet Dolls! We organized a performance of “Industry Baby” by Lil Nas X with them for Homecoming. The band was so excited to try something new and work with a new student group on campus! We slightly altered the advertising of our auditions this year, instead framing it as an Open House “Audition.” This definitely helped new members get a feel of the community of the band in addition to a formal audition process, so it took away a lot of pressure. This year included my first time traveling to Yale and Harvard with the band, and it was a lot of fun! I really liked getting to conduct in new stadiums and see the other bands! I especially enjoyed the bus rides and conversations at the rest stops.
We had four very unique shows created by our Show Committee Chairs, Michael “Chuckles” Alexiadis (‘26) and Ben “Chewy” McNulty (‘26)! Our first show, “That 70s Show”, included “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Swede, “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder, and “Carry on Wayward Son” by Kansas. We performed it at Yale and at our Homecoming game against Colgate! Our second show, “Money Moves,” included “Downtown” by Macklemore, “I Like It” by Cardi B, and “24K Magic” by Bruno Mars. “I Like It” had a drum break written by one of our drum captains, Patrick Thieblemont (‘25), as well as one of our seniors, Peter Bell (‘24)! It also had a dance break choreographed by Skylar Bush (‘26). We performed “Money Moves” at Harvard and our home game against Bucknell. Our third show was “Heroes vs. Villains,” which had “Could’ve Been Me” by Halsey, “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler, and “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John. We performed this show at our home games against Brown and Princeton. Our fourth and final show, our senior show, was “Light Up the Night.” It had “Raise Your Glass” by P!nk, “A Sky Full of Stars” by Coldplay, and “Give Me Everything (Tonight)” by Pitbull. This show was my personal favorite. “A Sky Full of Stars” featured a soli with all of the seniors in the band at the front! It was really sweet and sentimental. We performed our senior show at UPenn and our final home game against Columbia.
The game days were almost always highlighted by rain! The band room was consistently full of drying jackets on chairs. Everyone was determined to play on, rain or shine! I loved getting the chance to rehearse the band musically, especially since we had a LOT of talent to work with. I’m really happy that we brought back older songs, like “Throwdown,” so we didn’t lose our performance traditions!
I am so grateful for Beyan, the Show Committee, the section leaders, our Bandstaph, and the upperclassmen putting in all the work that they did. They all played a huge role in making sure that everyone felt accepted and safe. Without them, none of what we did could have been accomplished. I also want to thank all of you for your help at events, your old stories, and your advice! This year was so special for me, and I can’t wait for the next one. CU all then!
GO RED DAMMIT!!!
~ Nina “Pauws” Ellison ‘25
