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BYU-Idaho welcomes back its marching band, being without one for many years. In fact, Bill Holman, co-director of the band, said that BYU-I has not had a marching band since the 1950s.
“It’s crazy fun with a strong focus on excellence,” said Diane Soelberg, the other director of the band.
“The marching band has several purposes. First, we wanted to provide a marching band for the Music Department because we want music education students to know how to march and then be able to teach marching band, as well as develop leadership skills,” said Holman. However, Holman also said that the other purpose of the marching band is to involve all the students on campus, not just the music majors, and to support the student activities and the Athletics Department.
Currently, there are about 70 students in the band and approximately 16 student leaders. The student leaders include section leaders, drum majors, guard captains and a student director.
The marching band consists of several sections; the color guard, percussion, brass, woodwinds and frontline. The frontline is a small percussion group that stays in front of the band on the sidelines. It is made up of cymbals, a big bass drum and xylophones.
The marching band will play music from “West Side Story“ for their performances. Each show contains an opener, dance feature, percussion feature, special number and a closer.
The marching band will perform in the BYU-I stadium on Sept. 24 for the first Saturday football game of the season. They will also perform at the football games on Oct. 8, 15 and 27, as well as at the Nov. 27 championship game. The band will travel to Ririe, Idaho, to perform at a Ririe High School football game on Oct. 14.
“It’s neat to bring back the tradition of a marching band to the university after it has been gone for so many years. It’s a neat thing to be a part of,” Amy Farmer, a junior from American Fork, Utah, said.
