Members of the Cavalier Marching Band rehearse for five hours before each pregame and halftime show. (Photo illustration by John DiJulio, University Communications; photos by Matt Riley, University Communications)
Some Saturday mornings during the fall semester at the University of Virginia, more than 200 students wake up before sunrise – and well before many of their peers – for home football games.
They aren’t on the team, nor are they necessarily football fanatics. They are members of the Cavalier Marching Band.
“It’s just incredible,” said Lara Forstner, a fourth-year student and drum major in the Cavalier Marching Band.
On home game days, the band members spend roughly 10 hours working, from early morning rehearsals, to the “Wahoo Walk,” to performing pre-game and halftime shows to hauling their equipment from Scott Stadium. Practice starts about five hours before game time.
[♪ Cavalier Marching Band performs “The Cavalier Song” ♪]
During game weeks, being a band member can feel like having a part-time job: Students spend about 20 hours rehearsing the music and choreography (which marching band members call “drill”) for the upcoming game.
That level of commitment might lead someone to assume band members devote all their time, both academic and extracurricular, to music. They would be wrong. Of the Cavalier Marching Band’s 216 members, only 12 are majoring in music, and many of those study music as a second subject.
Members of the Cavalier Marching Band study in more than 80 academic areas.
“If you have an aerospace engineering student who is head down in the books and really focused on being the world’s next best aerospace engineer, this is an outlet for them – for expression, for community, for growth,” said Elliott Tackitt, director of bands at UVA.
While Forstner isn’t an engineering student, she’s studying nursing, which keeps her just as busy. Each week, she participates in rotations at UVA Health University Medical Center and Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital. When she isn’t in marching band rehearsals or learning how to care for patients, Forstner works at the Aquatic & Fitness Center and serves the Charlottesville community as vice president for musicianship of Kappa Kappa Psi, a service fraternity at UVA. But she loves performing – that’s why she is a band leader for the drum majors.
Lara Forstner and Justin Abel each credit the Cavalier Marching Band with helping them find community. (Photos by Matt Riley, University Communications)
“We just genuinely enjoy what we do,” Forstner said. “It’s an incredible thing to be able to perform for thousands of people at a football game.”
For Justin Abel, a fourth-year student and section leader for the trombones, Cavalier Marching Band has been a source of comfort and community. When he first stepped on Grounds for band camp the summer before his first year, he didn’t know many people. But he had loved playing in his high school marching band.
A small sliver of marching band members study music, contrary to what some may assume.
“As a first year, when you come in, you immediately have 200 people that want to be your friends, that are willing to help out,” Abel said.
Like Forstner, Abel stays busy as an economics and systems engineering double major. He is also a member of Alpha Phi Omega, a different service fraternity at UVA. While he sometimes wishes he had a little more time to study as the semester goes on, he doesn’t regret the time he spends in rehearsals and performing.
“Even if there are rehearsals where I’m not really in the mood, over the long run, you’re always glad you stuck with it,” Abel said.
Because he loves “playing loud” and taking part in the community around the marching band, Abel says it has become central to his UVA experience. For both Abel and Forstner, it’s taught them invaluable lessons, from study tips to reminders to wash their sheets every two weeks. It’s knowledge that more senior members of the Cavalier Marching Band pass down every year to the newest members of the marching band. That begins at band camp, an intense, 10-day period of rehearsals before the start of classes every year.
In addition to musicians, the marching band features baton twirlers like Madison Salber. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)
“For me, it was huge,” Forstner said of her first rehearsal. It was where she met people who she says will be lifelong friends.
Forstner and Abel share a favorite memory of their three years in the Cavalier Marching Band: running out from the tunnel at Scott Stadium for their first pregame show.
“It’s one of the coolest things we do,” Abel said. “Before you know it, you’re sprinting out of the tunnel at full tilt.”
University News Associate Office of University Communications
aberry@virginia.edu 434-924-6861
December 11, 2024
