The Ever-Changing Penn Band

This past weekend, my family and I had the privilege of spending yet another fun-filled day with the Penn Band on the occasion of the 2008 Alumni Day festivities. After serenading alumni of all ages and leading the traditional parade of classes, band members returned to their various, non-musical lives, while I and two of my fellow alumni went to the Glee Club Graduate Club reception.

Before I go any further, a quick word about the Penn Glee Club. The Penn Glee Club is a truly amazing organization. At 145 years old, they are Penn's oldest performing arts group. They have performed in nearly all 50 states, and in 35 nations on five continents. They've appeared on national television, at professional sporting events, and in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. They've also sung in the presence of various world leaders, and celebrities such as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly and Bill Cosby. In 1991, I had the pleasure of performing in their pit orchestra, which is what led to my presence at their graduate club reception last Saturday.

As a member of the pit orchestra, and a good friend of several club members, I've heard the club perform numerous times. I was always dutifully impressed with their rich, full sound and their polished, professional showmanship. They were always one of the few groups on campus that could easily hold their own alongside professional singing groups of any stripe. When the club regaled us with song at the GCGC reception, though, I had an interesting realization. The 2008 Glee Club sounded exactly like the 1991 Glee Club, singing various Penn Songs as well as some Club standards that the alumni knew well.

I commented to one of my friends that in a weird way, this made the Glee Club a little less impressive to me, since the achievements of the '91 Club seem to have been replicated precisely by an entirely new group of students, 17 years later. Not to take anything away from the current Club, mind you, but as impressive as they sound, it's likely that the 2025 Glee Club will sound equally as impressive 17 years from now.

I bring all of this up here on the Penn Band's blog to emphasize something unique about the Penn Band. Excellent musicians that they are, the 2008 Penn Band sounds very different from the Penn Band I knew back in 1991. The standard Penn Songs have all seen transformations (the trombone lick they added to The Red and Blue is brand new, but fits so nicely it sounds like it's been there since 1898, for example). Other staples, like Joshua and Mary Anne have disappeared altogether, replaced with new standards like The Final Countdown. And All Right Now, while technically still the same song, has undergone so many changes as to be almost unrecognizable to alums who haven't heard it in a while.

Tradition is a big part of what makes Penn special. If you prefer your tradition straight up, with every word, note and phrase exactly as you remember it, I couldn't recommend better than the Penn Glee Club. But if you prefer your tradition shaken, stirred, smashed into a million pieces, and then put back together in a way that is comfortably familiar yet distinctly new, fresh and modern, then the next time you're on campus, you've got to seek out the Penn Band.

Thanks for an awesome time, folks - see you at Homecoming!