From the VMI News Center
LEXINGTON, Va., Nov. 21, 2007 – In late November and early December, the VMI Regimental Band and Pipe Band will be preparing in earnest for their highest-profile performance ever: the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 1.
This will be possibly the first appearance ever of a Virginia state college band in what is known as the “Super Bowl” of parades. The parade will be seen by 400 million worldwide on TV and 1 million on site.
“We’ve never had a composite brass and bagpipe band in the parade,” remarked CL Keedy III, Tournament of Roses president and chairman of the board, on a visit to VMI in early November. College bands are few and far between in the Rose Parade. There are many more high school bands than collegiate ones. “I can’t remember the last time there was a Virginia band,” even a high school one, in the parade, Keedy said.
VMI’s will be one of only three college bands in the parade other than the two from the universities that will vie in the Rose Bowl football game.
The parade route in Pasadena includes a tricky 110-degree wheel turn, which will require practice.
“Luckily,” said Col. John Brodie, Regimental Band director, “we don’t have to be playing at that point. …The band has modified its parade maneuvers here at VMI to use wheel turns in each parade. That way, we practice for the Rose Parade with every parade here at VMI.”
The band will have to play continuously the first mile of the five-mile parade route. “There will be overhead signs saying, ‘Keep playing, keep playing, keep playing,’” Brodie noted. So the band members will need stamina.
The band is receiving support from many who once marched in its ranks. As part of fund-raising within the VMI family to pay expenses of the trip, a letter went to 900 former band members, many of whom played during Brodie’s 20-year tenure as director.
“Many former band cadets from all over the world have already responded and sent in checks to support the band,” said Brodie. “It has been marvelous.”
One notable gift came from Bernie Bossard ’56, who was a trumpet player while a cadet in Band Company. It was in the amount of $33,333.33, a sum that with a double-match from other VMI sources will bring contributions to within a penny of $100,000.
Considered alone, the band might not have been selected, nor the bagpipes. But together they were what the Rose Bowl wanted.
“When I first approached the Rose Parade people to see if they would consider having us participate, they said they never considered bands under 200 members eligible,” said Capt. Burt Mitchell, director of the VMI Pipe Band.
“Even though we are only going with less than 140 members, I convinced them that we had the unique combination of bagpipes and brass playing together and sent them a video. They said that this is what swayed them to include us for the 2008 parade.”
“Shenandoah,” one of the favorites of the committee, will be one of the tunes performed, along with “VMI Spirit,” “Scotland the Brave,” “Chester Grandioso” and “Grandfather’s Clock.”
This will be the most-watched and auspicious parade for VMI ever, but past ones have not exactly been small potatoes. Among them: 12 Mardi Gras parades as the Queen’s Band, the featured band in the largest parade at Mardi Gras; more than 20 gubernatorial and several presidential inaugurations; and a parade down the Avenue des Champs-Elysees in Paris for France’s Bicentennial in 1989.
