Centennial celebration helps to strike up the Penn Band

At halftime of the Homecoming game, current band members and alumni celebrated 100 years. And the band played on. The Penn Band, that is, as it entertained a Homecoming crowd Saturday for the official celebration of the group's centennial year. After the Quakers displayed their football prowess over the Princeton Tigers in the Homecoming game's first half, the band emerged to crush the competition with its numbers. At least 250 alumni combined with the 85 to 100 current band members -- the largest group of past and present members ever assembled -- to present a show riddled with traditional songs, "scramble" formations and, of course, customary Penn Band humor. Both past and present members regarded the on-field gathering as an incredible moment in the organization's long history. Band captain and Engineering senior Scott Levine said "everyone felt part of this one big happy family." College senior Chris Przybyszewski, the band's vice president, added, "It was a chance to get the very real feeling that this group has been around for a while. That makes you feel like you are part of something bigger than yourself." As told during the halftime show, the band's history began in 1897, when a few students posted notices calling for members. The band, a brainchild of H.P. Beck and W.J. Goeckel -- who co-composed "The Red and Blue" with Harry Westervelt -- has evolved throughout the past century but has remained a Penn tradition throughout. In its earlier years, the band performed in traditional marching formations but in the late 1960s adopted the less formal "scramble" style. Players chaotically run around until a whistle is blown, signalling the formation of words or numbers -- as in Saturday's "100" formed in commemoration of the group's birthday. Although the band abandoned a formal uniform for the present sweaters emblazoned with the Penn "P," Director Greer Cheeseman brought back some of the nostalgia this Homecoming with a replica uniform circa 1930. "It's tremendous," said Cheeseman on the 100th anniversary and his own 25-year history with the band. "It just shows that dreams do come true." A brunch featuring University President Judith Rodin's congratulatory remarks and a gala celebration at the Doubletree Hotel Saturday night reunited the band and its alumni association, which began only about 10 years ago. Chris Mario, a 1985 College graduate, noted the "huge response" the initial call for an alumni organization received. "People had been waiting for something like this," he said. Also noting the importance of the group's reunion at Homecoming, Mario analogized the alumni group to a "fraternity for a lot of people." Homecoming weekend also kicked off a fundraising effort to raise the band's endowment to $100,000. The band currently has approximately $58,000. "Harvard University's band has $1 million," noted 1987 College graduate Liz King, general counsel of the Band Alumni Association. She added that the money would provide for new instruments and give the band the opportunity to increase its presence at the Quakers' away games. Anticipating the release of the band's CD, entitled Four Score and Several Years to Go, the band faces the new century with hopes to expand its performance base to include more non-University events. "[Penn Band] is one of the best groups at Penn," College junior Owen Murphy said. "It's something to be proud of."

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