College Band Radio

This week, Jason sat down with Master Sergeant Jeff Prosperie of the West Point Hellcats and spoke about how American marching bands came to be and some of the highlights of MSG Prosperie's vast marching career. This episode is the College Band Radio series finale. Thank you all for tuning in over the past few years to listen as we've met so many wonderful members of the marching arts community.

Found one last episode deep in the vault that we figured we'd share with you all! Enjoy as Alex sat down with the director of the Savannah Bananas pep band, Sean McBride.

This week, Jason talks with friend and new Purdue Drum Major Valerie Minnick about what she's excited and scared about in regard to her new position within the band.

Everybody has seen videos of top high school recruits on national signing day, making their commitments and signing to their future school, but what if bands also had a signing day of their own? Jason sat down with the University of South Carolina School of Music Assistant Dean for Enrollment Management Jennifer Jablonski to discuss how they recruit top performers.

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Jason sat down with fellow Purdue mellophone player, Ian Ostermann, the Purdue band member from the viral clip from the 2021 Music City Bowl, as well as AJ Reed, the mellophone player from Tennessee who first saw that the video was going viral and went over to tell the Purdue band. They recount events from the bowl game and talk about other crazy fan experiences.

In the first episode of our 2-part bowl game recap mini-series, Savannah sits down with two members of the Pride of Utah, the University of Utah Marching Band. They discuss their Rose Bowl experiences after being part of Utah's first-ever appearance in the most famous bowl game and compare those to Savannah's Rose Bowl experience from the University of Washington's trip down to Pasadena to cap off their 2018 season.

Every marcher eventually puts on their uniform for the last time. This week, Jason, Hannah, and Savannah, 3 of the graduating seniors on our team chat about their experiences, memories, and highlights of their time in their schools' bands. Enjoy our season 3 finale.

Do you want to know what goes on behind the scenes to get a band ready to take the field on game day? This week, Jason chatted with Emily Collins, Administrative Assistant of the University of Connecticut Marching Band, about what it takes to get a band ready to perform from an administrative perspective.

This week, Madalyn and Craig sat down with the Ohio University Marching 110's Dance Coordinator, Ryan Steere. We talked about the process of coming up with a dance, how the band trains to meet the level of physicality that being part of a band famous for dancing demands, and a bunch more!

This week is all about fight songs. Alex and Samantha sat down with Albert Celotto and Jason DeGroff from the University of New Haven to discuss the process they went through to write a new fight song for the university and begin to create some traditions for the school, Jason and Samantha talk about their favorite fight songs, and we caught up with a friend of the podcast, Blake Partain, a freshman in the Troy University Sound of the South, to see how his freshman year has been since we spoke with him last. Alex also gives us a midseason update on what's going on across the college football landscape.

Alex and Rebecca sat down with Jenna Foley, a member of the Kutztown University Marching Unit, to talk about one of the largest events in the college band world, the Collegiate Marching Band Festival in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 

This week, we talked with some of the band world's most esteemed creative minds, discussing what it takes to write a band show. We spoke with Joshua Boyer, Assistant Director to the Ohio University Marching 110 about his drill writing process, and Matt Conaway, Assistant Professor of Bands at Purdue University about how he comes up with arrangements of songs for college bands and Hal Leonard publications.

This week, Jason and Alex interviewed Dr. Mark Spede, Director of the Clemson University Tiger Band and president of the College Band Directors National Association. They discussed what it was like to take a program from a 150 member band up to a 350 member band, while the football team went on a similar journey from just barely breaking .500 each season to becoming one of the top programs in the country. They also discuss what current challenges are facing the band world. Craig, Madalyn, and Alex also spend a few minutes talking about the relationship between their school's band programs and football teams.

We are back with a brand new season of College Band Radio, your favorite marching band podcast. Today, in celebration of the return of college football next week, we are talking all about preseason. First Jason and Rebecca sit down with an incoming trumpet freshman from the Troy University Sound of the South, Blake Partain, to talk about his first collegiate band camp experience, as well as what he is excited about from the upcoming season. Then Savannah and Jason chat with Jess Morley, drum major from the Rutgers University Marching Scarlet Knights about her experience as a student leader over the past 2 seasons and how they are preparing for this new season that's just around the corner. Plus we have some exciting news of our own! 

In the season finale of College Band Radio, Alex and Jason were joined by Bluecoats brass instructor Rick Brown to talk about the upcoming season for Drum Corps International (DCI)!

As the end of the school year draws near, we wanted to take some time to recognize some of the outstanding alumni opprotunities that exist in bands across the country! Our resident alumni Alex, Craig, and Rebecca highlight some of their favorite experiences (00:00). Craig is joined by head of the UConn Alumni Band, Dr. Pamela Marino, to talk about how they got started and the cool legacy with the ensemble (13:25).

This week we're getting an inside look at the world of NFL bands! We sat down with Dave Tucker, a former member of the Marching Ravens; Cassidy Howard, a former Purdue Golden Girl and current Indianapolis Colts cheerleader; and Jeremy Morikis, former Purdue drumline member and  current member of the Chicago Bears drumline!

This week is all about uniforms! Annabel, Hannah, Savannah, and Alex talked about some of their favorite marching uniform designs and debate what makes a good uniform (00:00:00). We then sat down with Michael Gray from DeMoulin Uniforms to talk about the cool design process behind marching uniforms (00:15:26). 

Today is all about scatter bands! Yanal Qushair, the drum major for the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band, and Cynthia Frimmet, a flute player in the Yale Precision Marching Band, chatted with Jason and Savannah about what it's like to be in a scatter band and shared some of their favorite stories (00:01:00). Hannah also provides the weekly FCS Update as teams near Selection Sunday on April 18th (00:29:46). 

Today we're featuring bands from smaller athletic conferences! Alex and Savannah talked with Emily Kraynak and Helena Savolaine about some of the cool traditions that they have at their respective universities, Central Washington University and Otterbein University. (00:01:14). Alex and Jason talked with Dr. Sean Kelley of North Central College and Dr. Doug Whitten of Pittsburg State Universitiy about some of the cool similarities and differences between D1 and D2/3 ensembles (00:23:28).

This week's episode is all about auxiliaries! We start off by talking about the state of the Marching Madness bracket (00:00:00) and then get into the week five FCS update with Hannah (00:02:46). The team also talks about why auxiliaries are so important to the marching arts (00:03:57). Our featured guests for the interview today are Maeve St. Onge, guard captain at Sacred Heart University, and Amanda Coy, the Golden Girl at Purdue University (00:03:57). 

It's time for March Madness! Alex, Craig, and Hannah introduce the Marching Madness bracket (00:00:00) and their teams to watch in the tournament this year. Jason and Alex are joined by Abel Solomon, a former trumpet player in the UMBC Down and Dirty Dawg Band who witnessed their legendary upset against number one seed Virginia (00:18:43). 

Happy Marching Music Day! We're celebrating by releasing our episode a day early. This week the team reflected on some of their favorite high school marching memories (00:00:00), and Savannah was joined by Hayden Gizinski of the Husky Marching Band to talk about her experience in the Seattle All City Marching Band (00:19:58). The episode wraps up with advice to those considering college band (00:32:37) and an update on the FCS from Hannah (00:41:21).

This week the team talked about all the cool variations of pep bands that aren't basketball! Craig, Savannah, and Hannah recount their favorite non-traditional pep band experiences (00:00:00) and our resident hockey fans Jason and Alex talk to Victoria Paspalas and Allison Okeley about their time in hockey pep band at Boston University and Notre Dame (00:15:08). Hannah wraps up the episode with FCS Updates in a Flash (00:46:42). 

FCS is back, and so's season two of College Band Radio! The team does a little roundup of the happenings during our season break, and Hannah gives a preview of how the spring season will work and teams to watch for FCS football. (00:00:00) Learn more about what the differences are between FBS and FCS marching band from former Syracuse Marching Band director and current UNI Panther Marching Band director Dr. Justin Mertz! (00:11:52) The team wraps up the episode with some college basketball talk and a little reminiscing about how it's almost March...again. (00:28:23) Special thanks to our sponsor FlipFolder App and our partner CollegeMarching.com!

Today's episode is brought to you by FlipFolder App. It's the end of marching season for many across the country, and that means it's senior day! This week we were joined by Kaycee Stevenson of the UW Western Thunder Marching Band and Bennett Cournoyer & Ryan Cho of the University of Iowa Hawkeye Marching Band to talk about their experiences as seniors in what's been a season like no other (15:26). The team also discussed fun holiday band traditions and our favorite memories from College Band Radio's first season to wrap up our season finale. (56:12) We'll be back with new episodes after New Years!

We are proud to announce that this episode, and all future ones, are sponsored by our new partner FlipFolder App! The team talks about the increasing role technology plays in marching band - especially during the COVID-19 pandemic (0:00). We were joined this week by former Pitt Varsity Marching Band member Marcus Dubreuil, creator of FlipFolder App, to talk about the story behind the creation of the app and how it works. (17:16)

This week we got a special peek behind the scenes of the process behind the first-ever Intercollegiate Marching Band virtual halftime show, hosted by the College Band Directors National Association! We're joined by Barry Houser, Director of Fighting Illini Athletic Bands/Chair of CBDNA Athletic Bands committee, Dr. Mark Spede, Director of Bands at Clemson University/CBDNA National President; and Michael Barasch, co-founder of CollegeMarching.com. We also recap the latest news from around the college bands world and talk about some of our favorite band trip stories.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! On this week's special edition of the pod, our hosts talked Thanksgiving, sorted band sections into different dishes, and answered the fun questions you all submitted on our social media pages! Make sure to give us a follow on Instagram @collegebandradio, Twitter @collegebandrdo, and YouTube at College Band Radio. 

In honor of college basketball’s return, this week’s episode is all about pep band! We talk about our pep band experience (0:00), sit down with Doc Nix and Derrick Wallis of the legendary George Mason University Green Machine Pep Band (20:08), and talk band and preview basketball with CBS Sports Senior Writer, bracketologist, and Purdue All-American Marching Band alumni Jerry Palm (45:10).

Welcome back to College Band Radio and Happy Homecoming to all of our band friends!!

This is our homecoming episode, where we speak with Jonathan Johnson, a three-year drum major at Jackson State University in The Sonic Boom of The South, and Crissy Shannon and Kayleigh Matthews of the Pitt Band at the University of Pittsburgh about what homecoming is like on their campuses. 

We also discuss what homecoming is like with the CBR team, plus a discussion about college football so far, the return of the Pac-12 and predictions for this weekend's games!

Thanks everyone for listening and follow the podcast on Twitter @CollegeBandRdo and on Instagram @collegebandradio for more content! Also, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, just look up College Band Radio! Stay safe and healthy and we'll talk to you next week!

Welcome back to the newest episode of College Band Radio, a part of the CollegeMarching.com family, the leader in college marching band news and information..

This week, we shook up things on the podcast as this episode, Hannah, Savannah and Annabel took over as the main hosts for this week to discuss women in marching band and women in sports. We interviewed former Michigan drum major Kelly Bertoni about her experiences in marching band and the group had a lengthy discussion about where we stand and where we can go moving forward with the growing number of women in sports and marching band!

Also, we discussed picks for this week, but note several of those games were changed due to cancellations from COVID-19-related circumstances, notably the Mizzou @ No. 10 Florida game.

Thanks to everyone for listening this week and you can follow the podcast on Twitter @CollegeBandRdo and on Instagram @collegebandradio. Also, we're on YouTube, just search College Band Radio! We'll be posting podcast highlight clips as well as funny memes and other content over the course of the week. Stay safe, stay healthy and we'll be back next week with Episode 5!

Welcome to the newest episode of College Band Radio, our third in our first season with CollegeMarching.com, the leading college marching band news and information site anywhere.

This week, we discuss what it's like to be in a marching band for a school that has one of the best college football programs in the country, the schools you immediately name when you think of college football. We spoke with two members of these legacy schools, Alabama and North Dakota State, about their experiences.

In our news segment, we discuss more about the college football landscape and the biggest news of the week, the return of Big Ten football this weekend. Our picks segment includes several Big Ten games, and is definitely our favorite picks segment we've recorded thus far, so we hope you enjoy!

Thanks for listening and you can follow the podcast on Twitter @CollegeBandRdo and on Instagram @collegebandradio and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Just look up College Band Radio! 

Welcome back to the newest episode of College Band Radio, our second episode in our first season with CollegeMarching.com, the leader in college marching band news and information!

In this second episode, the CBR crew discusses the biggest news stories of the last week in college sports, including a timely discussion of how the COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive outbreaks among teams and game postponements across the country. 

Our main segment this week is all about Greek life and college band, as we speak to members of the Kappa Kappa Psi fraternity and Tau Beta Sigma sorority about their experiences within band, different service projects and the national scope of each of their organizations.

Thanks for listening and you can follow College Band Radio on Twitter @CollegeBandRdo and on Instagram @collegebandradio! 

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Season 1 premiere of College Band Radio!

We are excited to announce a new partnership with CollegeMarching.com and excited to bring on three new members to the team: Annabel Carter, Hannah Butler and Savannah Westlund, who you will all enjoy getting to know moving forward!

In this first episode, we introduce the full team, talk about college marching band in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic, and give our picks for this weekend's upcoming college football games!

All that and more in our Season 1 premiere!

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @CollegeBandRdo and on Instagram @collegebandradio, and watch us on YouTube! Just look up College Band Radio!