Friday, October 05, 2007

MMB Connections

Michigan welcomes back a few MMB alumni at the Eastern game this weekend.

Miller Asbill and John Zastoupil both served on last year's MMB staff while earning doctoral and master's degrees, respectively. Professor Asbill is Eastern's Director of University Bands, and Professor Zastoupil is the new Associate Director of Bands and the Director of the EMU Marching Band.

They are not alone; there are many other people with ties to the MMB and U-M School of Music working in prominent positions for notable band programs throughout the country:

  • Ohio State: Dr. Jon Woods, 23-year director of "Tibbid Bittle," holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
  • Penn State: Dr. O. Richard Bundy, director of the Blue Band, holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan.
  • Michigan State: Kevin Sedatole, Director of Bands, served as the Michigan Marching Band director in the late '90s.
  • Wisconsin: Bill Garvey, field assistant to the University of Wisconsin Marching Band, holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan.
  • Minnesota: Director of Bands Jerry Luckhardt served on the University of Michigan faculty.
There are also connections in bands with which the MMB has recently performed:
  • USC: Dr. Bartner, longtime director of the Trojan Marching Band, earned his B.A., M.A., and Ed.D. in Music Education from the University of Michigan, under the guidance of William D. Revelli
  • Texas: Assistant (to the) Director of Bands at Texas, Dr. Damon Talley, holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan.
(NB: Conversely, Texas has pretty much served as a direct pipeline to U-M. IIRC, current MMB assistant director Scott Bersaglia, his predecessor Damon Talley, and former MMB directors Jamie Nix and Kevin Sedatole all were affiliated with the Texas bands at one point in their careers.)

There are undoubtedly more out there, but even this list provides further incontrovertible proof of our dominance over mankind's accomplishments, from marching bands to lunar travel. We're in ur faculteez, correcting ur step sizez.

12 comments:

jeffsl said...

Impressive list. To my knowledge, Art Bartner and Jerry Luckhardt are the only folks in that group that actually marched in the MMB -- Bartner under Revelli, and Luckhardt under Eric Becher in the early 80's. Luckhardt was actually the MMB Director in 1989 (my freshman year). He was interim director between Becher and Gary Lewis.

Speaking of Lewis, he's currently Director of Orchestras at Texas Tech. Jeff Grogan, a grad ass't under Lewis, interim director in 1995, and assistant director under Sedatole, is now the assistant conductor of the New Jersey Symphony.

Just throwing some shout-outs to my era, but it just goes to show that U-M continues to produce some very impressive, high-achieving musicians.

Jeff
Bones 89~92

Unknown said...

Dennis Glocke, the current director of bands at Penn State, was an associate Director of Bands here until he took his current position at PSU in 1996

Aram said...

Thought someone here might know the answer to this. Is there any precedent for the MMB doing halftime duets with other bands, other than the WMU 9/11 thing? I know there's been intermingling in postgame shows.

Tomorrow we're doing part of our halftime show with Eastern Michigan. They're going to come on the field, play a song with us ("This Is My Country." Think the hokey patriotic songs you sang in elementary school), walk away, and we're going to march The Victors off the field.

I can't remember the MMB ever doing anything like this. Just wondering if anybody else knows better than me, my awareness only goes back about 15 years.

matt said...

aram, we tried to do something with the Rice band, but those bastards wouldn't stand still! Stop...MOVING!!

Ameed said...

J Zast was in Baylor's Band. Pretty sure he was never enrolled or working at Texas, unless you mean the state of. UM was the first grad school he attended, according to his profile as well as from what I remember.

Though the Baylor connection to the MMB is pretty strong, from what I remember.

Jeremy said...

Oops, good catch, Ameed. Though he's not directly connected, Zastoupil lived with Dr. Sedatole while finishing up his student teaching in Austin.

Al McCord said...

IIRC, I've also seen MMB-NUMB and MMB-MSU (honoring President Ford when his jersey was retired).

Al McCord said...

And a few more MMB connections include:

Syracuse - Former MMB director James Tapia is now director of orchestral studies at Syracuse
Iowa State - Matt Smith, former MMB assistant and MM grad, is director of the Iowa State marching band
Ilinois - James Keene, longtime director of bands at Illinois, was an assistant director of the MMB under George and marched with the MMB in the late 60s
Indiana - Steven Pratt, director of bands, has a MM from Michigan
Arizona - current director Gregg Hanson is a Revelli-era Michigan student, as was his predecessor Myles Mazur (Eric Becher was at both Arizona and Minnesota after leaving Michigan) ... and don't forget Jack Lee, who 'built' the Arizona program after being 'the assistant director before George'
LSU - director of bands Frank Wickes has a MM from Michigan
Brigham Young - director of bands Dave Blackington has both BM and MM degrees from Michigan

Sv said...

Aram, during my years ('93-'97) the MMB did joint on-field performances with MSU regularly, OSU once in '97 (ha ha!), and NUMB once in '96ish.

Jeremy said...

Sven?

Unknown said...

Under the Texas Connection list, don't forget Glenn Richter--now DOB at U-T Austin.

Anonymous said...

1990 saw MSU come in for a song at halftime. I swear Minnesota did it when they came during my tenure as well, but I'm not sure.

In 1985, the band did a "Back to the Future" show where M bands of the past came on before the regular band did. A group of reserves represented a turn of the century band, the Riverview High band plus some reserves were the 1948 band, Pioneer and Huron combined to be the 1977 band. I was in the Riverview band, but I can't remember what we played (it may have been Over the Rainbow). The '77 band did Staying Alive. Then the M band came out and after they did Back in Time, everybody did Stars and Stripes Forever. I actually got a rare post Band Day chance to be on the field in the band before I was in MMB.

Mike B.
Drumline 87-90