The band has performed together at Welcome Stadium, at Wilberforce University and Central State University homecomings. The band plans to perform in the Dayton Children’s Parade, part of the annual tree lighting ceremony downtown on Nov. 25. The individual school bands also perform separately at high school football games.
In the early 2000s, DPS’s band programs withered away due to a lack of investment in music education and a focus on just academics. But with the help of the Dayton Public Schools Foundation and community support, DPS’s band programs have been thriving.
“There’s been a big groundswell from the community to bring back the bands like they once were in the past,” said Kathy McIntosh, DPS academic coordinator for music, grades seven through 12. “And this is kind of building toward that.”
McIntosh credited DPS superintendent Elizabeth Lolli, a former music educator, with giving a lot of support to the band programs, as well as expanding music education at the elementary level.
McIntosh hopes that younger students see their older siblings perform and are interested in performing in the band themselves.
“I think people understand the role that music education plays in a child’s life and they’re just excited to see that happening,” she said.
Dayton is not the first All-City marching band, modeling itself after band programs in Detroit, Los Angeles and New York City. But the idea seems to be inspiring other large districts, like Cincinnati Public, to consider the idea, DPS officials said.
G. Scott Jones, Thurgood Marshall’s choir and band director, said the All-City band allows the students to play with a bigger group of students than they would at their own schools and helps form cross-community relationships.
“It’s good to have your own program going, especially when you feel strong about your program, but it’s also good to meet new kids and, and to be part of that larger, bigger sound as well,” Jones said.
Jones and several other DPS band directors are graduates of Central State, one of the Historically Black College and Universities in the U.S., which typically have different sounds and traditions than universities that serve predominately white students.
Jones said the band program is trying to weave together those HBCU traditions with other traditions to create an entirely new sound for Dayton Public’s band.
“This is a quintessential part of the American experience,” Jones said of American marching bands. “So it’s important that our students get that because they’ve grown up without it.”
How to donate to DPS’s band program:
- Go to the Dayton Public Schools Foundation website to donate directly to the band programs.
- If you have a used instrument, each summer Classical Radio Station 88.1 collects used instruments from listeners at Grismer garages.
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