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
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!
