Maryland's Bands Celebrate 100 Years :: University Communications Newsdesk, University of Maryland

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For Immediate Release
October 24, 2008
Contacts: David Ottalini, 301 405 4076 or dottalin@umd.edu

Maryland's Bands Celebrate 100 Years

By Lauren Brown
Originally published in Between the Columns Faculty/Staff Newsletter
October, 2008

First Marching Band at Maryland - 1908 The Maryland Agricultural College Cadet Band marched onto the field between the original Barracks and Route 1 for its first concert in October 1908. Wearing wool, military-style uniforms, the 25-member corps opened with popular favorites of the time such as "Home, Sweet Home."

On Saturday, October 25, an alumni band of the same size replicated parts of the 100-year-old performance during Homecoming, before morphing into a band of an estimated 500 alumni playing for 51,500 cheering Terp football fans as part of the bands' centennial celebration.



Marching Band Director Richmond Sparks talks about the 100th Anniversary Halftime Show for October 25.

It's symbolic of the growth of the University of Maryland's band program, which is much more than the "Mighty Sound of Maryland" so familiar to the public.

The program in the School of Music today includes more than 600 students who perform in a wide variety of ensembles: the marching band, pep band, community band, five jazz combos, three jazz bands and four concert bands.

The marching band is not only a rallying point for the campus community, but also the root of the program's success, says university archivist and band superfan Anne Turkos.

"It is the visibility of the marching band that raises the profile of the other bands," she says.

Band Historian Richard Taylor talks about the early years of the the band. Here you see the first Mandolin Club.
(University Archives)

While some band members joined to fulfill part of their ROTC requirements, says Turkos, the band also drew student musicians who'd been playing the dance circuit for fraternities and other groups.

By the 1910s, the band was a successful public relations tool for the university. It later played at football games, wrote fight songs and held regular concerts at Ritchie Coliseum. Former university editor Dianne Burch is working with Turkos and band alumnus Dick Taylor on a book and songbook coming out in the spring about the bands, Musical Ambassadors of Maryland: A
Centennial Celebration.

Growing To Its Full Potential

The program exploded in the 1950s, thanks to postwar growing enrollment and the arrival in 1955 of band director Hugh Henderson. At his hiring, he insisted that the marching band be shifted from its then-ROTC training focus to the School of Music. Then, he says, he began reading high school seniors' applications to the university to look for musicians to recruit, and he traveled across the state talking up the program to high school band directors.

"That introduction paid off," says Henderson, who at age 90 has been asked to conduct part of the Oct. 25 Homecoming halftime show.


Maryland's Bands at 100 Slide Show

In his first year, the student band had 72 students. By the time he left in 1965, the marching band boasted nearly 200 - and Henderson had created four other bands, to total more than 300 students in the program.

He re-energized student leadership in the bands, says Lowell Richmond Sparks, associate director of bands, who is marking his 25th anniversary with the university.

"Students picked the music, wrote the whole drill," he says. "That tradition continues today. Students are directing section leaders to teach music, and they pass that on to section members. It teaches ownership, and I believe it's why we're so successful."