Ever True
Marching to the beat of their own drum
Brown Band celebrates 100 years
By Maggie Spear
November 25th, 2024
Nearly 200 band alumni spanning seven decades performed in the halftime show during Brown’s first home game against rival Harvard, an effort organized to celebrate the Brown Band’s centennial.Photo: Nick Dentamaro
When first-year Brown University student Irving Harris attended his first football game, he sat in the wooden stands of Andrews Field, eagerly awaiting an appearance by the University marching band.
It was 1924, and bands were already a popular part of collegiate athletics to rally enthusiasm for players and fans alike. As the story goes, when Harris turned to ask a friend when the performance would start, he was flabbergasted to learn there wouldn’t be one — rather, the band at Brown was an informal group of student musicians who performed infrequently at a handful of events.
At that, Harris swiftly campaigned to establish the Brown Band. One hundred years later, it’s one of the oldest student-led organizations on campus and is a staple at athletics events, campus celebrations and University milestones.
Irving Harris, seen here in 1927 standing in front of modern-day Friedman Hall, and later in 1964, founded the Brown Band 100 years ago. PHOTO: BROWN ARCHIVES
“I’ve been asked before what [Irving Harris] would say of the band today, and I can tell you with near certainty after years of research, and even talking to one of his family members, that I think he would absolutely adore it,” said Class of 2019 alumnus and former band percussionist Sean Briody, who recently published a book about the band, “The Brown University Band: An Ever True History.”
Harris returned to Brown to celebrate the band’s 40th and 50th anniversaries, in 1964 and 1974, respectively, and stayed in contact with the band until his death in 1976, Briody said.
Even though the world has transformed in innumerable ways since Fall 1924, the palpable, enthusiastic spirit of the Brown Band has remained unchanged.
“I think we all really love supporting Brown and its sports, cheering on the school and creating that spirit,” said Kanayo Duru, head conductor of the Brown Band. “It’s just a great time."
A ‘big Brown Band family’ for life
In 2024-25, the Brown Band is ringing in 100 years with the fanfare befitting a band. It kicked off its centennial year with a band alumni reunion and performance at the Brown football team’s first home game against rival Harvard, in which the Bears secured a thrilling 31-28 win against the Crimson.
At the game, nearly 200 band alumni spanning seven decades reunited and joined current band members to perform a halftime show on Richard Gouse Field at Brown Stadium. With more than 250 participants, it was likely the largest Brown Band performance in history, according to band advisor and percussion coach Karen Mellor, a member of Brown’s Class of 1982 and a former band percussionist.
“It’s the shared experience of band that binds all these people together and enabled over 250 people who hadn’t necessarily ever played together to play together as a single cohesive unit,” Mellor said. “And even for people who’ve never met, they’re all part of the big Brown Band family.”
That was certainly the case for Brown Class of 1977 graduate Don Siegel, who played snare drum in the Brown Band and participated in the band reunion and alumni halftime show.
The Brown Band built its own 15-foot-tall bass drum in 1969, assembling it in the lower level of Faunce House the night before a football game against rival Harvard. PHOTO: BROWN ARCHIVES
“Unlike simply going to a reunion… where it’s all about a past that doesn’t exist anymore and you can’t go back and they are all just memories, this reunion was just the opposite,” Siegel said. “We realized that all that stuff still does exist — the same Brown songs, the drum cadences, the cowbell, the buttons, the uncoordinated marching, the rowdy bus songs, the singing, the feeling part of something. It’s not just a memory… in 2024, 50 years later, it’s just like it was then.”
The Brown Band has yielded lifelong friendships, and even true love.
“I’d venture to say there are more marriages or partnerships coming out of the band than any other student-led organization,” Mellor said. “We had well over a dozen band couples at the reunion spanning the decades.”
Kenneth Sloan and Christine Curcio, members of the Class of 1969 and 1972, respectively, are one of those couples.
Curcio was one of three first-year women who visited the Brown Band board in the spring of 1969 to request that women be allowed to join. The trio was successful, and a few months later, Curcio met Sloan at a recruiting table for the band. They’ve been together for 55 years, and the couple returns to Brown to take part in the band alumni’s annual performance during ice hockey season.
“Brunonians always say we’re ‘Ever True,’ but when I stop to think about it, I really believe that the band is one of the best examples of that,” Briody said. “It’s all about loyalty. The band alumni, who were so loyal as students and band members during their time here, come back and they’re still just as loyal.”
A band member playfully gives bunny ears to former Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci, Jr. during a Brown football game.PHOTO: BROWN ARCHIVES
Traditions, with a touch of tomfoolery
Unlike traditional, corps-style marching bands, the Brown Band is a scramble band. Rather than forming intricate, geometric formations, the band “scrambles” across the field, creating pictures that accompany a satirical, humorous script read aloud by an announcer.
That cheeky sense of humor sets the Brown Band apart, according to Briody, who served as one of the band’s historians during his time at Brown. He first set out to record a comprehensive history of the band as part of his senior thesis. Five years after his graduation from Brown, Briody published his book in early 2024, just in time for the band’s centennial.
Digging into halftime show scripts from decades past, he observed that humor underpinned the writing. By poking fun at current events, the band offered moments of levity and laughter, especially during contentious times, he said.
“Even when I was in the band in 2016, we’d have these funny scripts about Trump, Clinton, things like that,” Briody said. “And when I went deeper, going into the ’60s and ’70s, I saw these very similar script references about LBJ and Goldwater. “
