23 Feb 2014 UCA Band celebrates centennial
by Donna Lampkin Stephens
The Year of the Band has arrived in the 501 as the University of Central Arkansas Band will mark its centennial birthday with a year-long celebration in 2014.
From the premiere of a newly commissioned wind ensemble piece to the featuring of performing, teaching and composing alumni in various venues, the birthday party will run through December.
“We told the students that to be part of a centennial, just the timing of it, is quite amazing,” said Dr. Ricky Brooks, just the third director of bands at UCA since 1958. “To be a part of anything that turns 100 years old is quite exciting, to say the least.”
Jimmy Bryant, director of the UCA Archives and a Bear band alumnus, said the first band at what was then Arkansas State Normal School was organized in 1914 and featured 21 members. The Bear Marching Band last fall boasted about 200.
But there’s much more to the UCA Band than just a few halftime shows during football season. Brooks, who arrived on campus in 1995, said the program had grown and evolved over the years to include three concert bands — the Wind Ensemble, Symphonic Band and University Band — as well as a whole array of chamber groups, two Big Bands (Jazz and Dixieland) and the basketball pep band.
“All of those make up the culture of the band,” Brooks said. “Each studio has its own chamber group. Marching Band is the biggest group. When I got here, there were 90. It quickly grew to 150, 160, and stayed there for six or seven years before it started creeping up to 180, 190, 210.”
He said the UCA Band, like all such college bands in the early part of the 20th century, was an early form of entertainment “before there was instant music at your fingertips.”
“They would give concerts throughout the year, as would the choir, and that would be the entertainment for the students and the community,” Brooks said. “We still do those, but as the years have gone by, we have more.
“Turning 100 shows you the longevity and the commitment of the school to continue that. As with anything that develops and progresses through that 100 years, there’s a lot more people involved than just the band director and the students. The administration and the community have also been very important.”
Brooks mentioned such diverse events as football games, concerts and appearances in the Faulkner County Fair Parade as examples of the reach of the program.
Dr. Jeffery Jarvis, chair of the UCA Department of Music, said the centennial provided an opportunity to look back as well as ahead.
“We continue to take great pride in the history and achievements of the UCA Bands,” he said. “These milestones offer an excellent opportunity to reflect on the people who have contributed — students and faculty — to the good work done in this area over the past 100 years.
“The centennial of the UCA Bands is another opportunity to reflect on the power of music to bring a special quality of life to our campus, our community and our state. Without doubt, we would all be poorer without the past 100 years of bands at UCA.”
The highlight of the centennial celebration will be the Sunday, April 13, premiere of the David Gillingham-commissioned “Crossover,” recognizing and celebrating the centennial. The premiere will be at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, home of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The 3 p.m. matinee will also feature UCA alumnus Tony Baker, a trombone professor at the University of North Texas, on a concerto for trombone and band titled “Colloquy;” “Rhapsody for Piano and Wind Ensemble,” composed by Dr. Paul Dickinson of the UCA music faculty, featuring UCA pianist in residence Neil Rutman; and a tuba concerto by Christian Carichner, also a member of the UCA music faculty.
“The alumni office and foundation office are collaborating to make it a huge event to bring in donors and alumni,” Brooks said.
The concert is free and open to the public.
On Thursday, April 17, the concert will come home to Reynolds Performance Hall on the UCA campus as the Centennial Gala Concert, also free and open to the public. Gillingham will be an artist in residence through the College of Fine Arts and Communication Wednesday, April 16, and Thursday, April 17.
Other centennial events include an alumni band performance and reception for UCA’s Night of Distinction on Saturday, May 10; and a special homecoming halftime show that will feature the band’s music through the years, beginning with 1958 and the arrival of Homer Brown, considered the father of the modern band program.
“The band suffered from having too many directors over a short period of time,” Bryant said. “Until Homer Brown, there had been at least 12 since 1914. Because of this lack of stability, the band’s size stayed relatively small and had anywhere from 20 to 40 members. After Mr. Brown’s arrival, the band began to grow.”
Bryant recalled that when he arrived on campus as a freshman in 1972, the band numbered about 90.
“I had been the only tuba for all but one year (at England High School), and when I came to UCA we had six tuba players,” he said. “That was a huge difference.”
Brown conducted marching practices with a megaphone from the bleachers and would interrupt occasionally to correct mistakes publicly.
“One day we were practicing on the main football field and Mr.
Brown and Pat Hasty, assistant band director and director of the Dixieland Band, were standing in the bleachers observing the halftime routine,” Bryant remembered. “Mr. Brown brought the band to a halt. Then he got on his megaphone and said, ‘Tuba player from England, Bryant, put your legs together.’ Well, I am somewhat bow-legged, and after I put my legs together, he and Hasty started laughing.
“Brown then got on his megaphone and said, ‘Bryant, you couldn’t catch a pig in a ditch, could you?’ Of course, the band members — excluding myself — laughed hysterically.”
Brown took the band — christened “Homer’s Heroes” — to Washington, D.C., in 1965 and ‘73 for the inaugural parades of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Other highlights have included a memorable performance at the dedication of Greers Ferry Dam in October 1963, President John F. Kennedy’s last public appearance before his trip to Texas in November; and the premiere of a commissioned piece, “Masque,” by Francis McBeth, laureate composer of Arkansas, at the dedication of the Snow Fine Arts Center in 1968.
Brown, who stepped down as director of bands in 1979, remains a revered part of the UCA band lore. His daughter, Dr. Jackie Lamar, is professor of saxophone, continuing the family legacy.
Russell Langston was director of bands from 1979-86, followed by Brooks. His tenure thus far has been highlighted by the Wind Ensemble’s performance at Carnegie Hall in New York and the U.S. Capitol in 2002 and concerts in Salzburg and Vienna, Austria, in 2008.
Brown, Langston and Brooks have all been inducted into the Arkansas Bandmasters Hall of Fame.
Terry Wright, interim dean of the UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication, is anticipating the future while celebrating the past.
“I look forward to the beginning of a new century of creative expression, engaging performances and engrossing student experiences from UCA’s band programs — beginning with the commemorative concert in Dallas on April 13,” Wright said.
Bryant, who was initiated into Kappa Kappa Psi, the honorary band fraternity, in 1973, is an example of the lasting influence the UCA Bands have had on people in the 501 and beyond.
“The best thing that happened to me because of the UCA Band is that I met my wife (the former Jann Duvall),” he said. “She wasn’t in the band, but she was in the orchestra and in Snow Fine Arts Center a great deal. In March we will have been married for 33 years.
“Even though it’s been 42 years since I came to UCA, I still play the tuba. My wife was kind enough to buy me a tuba for my birthday a couple of years ago. Few people own their own tuba, but I can play whenever I feel like it.”
