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Inspire Arts and Music forms partnership with NESBA


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Inspire Arts and Music, parent of the Boston Crusaders, forms a partnership with New England Scholastic Band Association (NESBA).

Effective immediately, the New England Scholastic Band Association (NESBA) and Inspire Arts & Music (IAM) have entered into a partnership where IAM will serve as the exclusive Administrative Partner of NESBA. 

 

In this partnership, NESBA will tap IAM’s administrative resources to improve user experience for participating ensembles and build long term sustainability. IAM will work alongside the NESBA Board of Directors and key administrators to install operational systems, streamline processes, improve efficiency, and upgrade marketing capacity, to create a better experience for band/guard directors and booster organizations. By boosting participation, sponsorships, and revenue, NESBA and IAM seek to increase participation and brand awareness with the goal to host larger events and secure larger venues. IAM will work to increase NESBA participation across the outdoor and indoor offerings, grow all NESBA events including outdoor and indoor championships, and look to create marquee events in great venues with top level adjudicators...........

............Both IAM and NESBA share similar missions. IAM currently operates the largest scholastic festival company in New England through Great East Music Festivals and Fantastic Festivals. These companies serve over 625 middle and high school concert bands, jazz bands, and choirs with enriching performance opportunities through 60 different competitive festivals each spring. Likewise, NESBA serves the finest marching bands, color guard, and percussion ensembles in New England with adjudicated indoor and outdoor performance series. Both organizations strive to provide a safe and educational atmosphere which fosters creativity, diversity, growth and achievement with long term sustainability. 

 

https://inspirearts.org/2022/09/nesba-and-iam/

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3 hours ago, Barneveld said:

Inspire Arts and Music, parent of the Boston Crusaders, forms a partnership with New England Scholastic Band Association (NESBA).

Effective immediately, the New England Scholastic Band Association (NESBA) and Inspire Arts & Music (IAM) have entered into a partnership where IAM will serve as the exclusive Administrative Partner of NESBA. 

 

In this partnership, NESBA will tap IAM’s administrative resources to improve user experience for participating ensembles and build long term sustainability. IAM will work alongside the NESBA Board of Directors and key administrators to install operational systems, streamline processes, improve efficiency, and upgrade marketing capacity, to create a better experience for band/guard directors and booster organizations. By boosting participation, sponsorships, and revenue, NESBA and IAM seek to increase participation and brand awareness with the goal to host larger events and secure larger venues. IAM will work to increase NESBA participation across the outdoor and indoor offerings, grow all NESBA events including outdoor and indoor championships, and look to create marquee events in great venues with top level adjudicators...........

............Both IAM and NESBA share similar missions. IAM currently operates the largest scholastic festival company in New England through Great East Music Festivals and Fantastic Festivals. These companies serve over 625 middle and high school concert bands, jazz bands, and choirs with enriching performance opportunities through 60 different competitive festivals each spring. Likewise, NESBA serves the finest marching bands, color guard, and percussion ensembles in New England with adjudicated indoor and outdoor performance series. Both organizations strive to provide a safe and educational atmosphere which fosters creativity, diversity, growth and achievement with long term sustainability. 

 

https://inspirearts.org/2022/09/nesba-and-iam/

NESBA. The USBands and Western Bands of the East coast. *Blue Devils owns Western Bands and USBands.

SMART MOVE BOSTON! Now come take the rest of the east coast, maybe some TOB, OMEA, and other Midwest and Eastern circuits. Maybe partner with Mid States Band Association (MSBA)!

I LOVE this!

Edited by jjeffeory
Cleaning up post
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This is a great move!  Boston's organizational structure including a full-time office staff in Hyde Park as well as its financial stability and resources will be a windfall for NESBA. Great news for all stakeholders!

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it's a good move for Boston especially regionally, as competitive band up there isn't what it is from NY on down to VA.

 

as for TOB it'd take an act of God to get the powers there to give up any control

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45 minutes ago, craiga said:

This is a great move!  Boston's organizational structure including a full-time office staff in Hyde Park as well as its financial stability and resources will be a windfall for NESBA. Great news for all stakeholders!

I think a drum corps infusion could do a great deal for NESBA. I don’t see as many high school band shows as I would like, mainly due to schedule conflicts, but I enjoy NESBA shows and they remind me of the old CYO and Eastern Mass. Circuit shows with groups of differing sizes and abilities competing in a local atmosphere. There’s also a lot of heart. US Band shows that often include Dartmouth, Blackstone Millville, and King Philip have more of a DCI feel and can be a bit more competitive. If NESBA could attract more schools and be a bit more competitive, that would be a huge plus. 

Something I find curious in the Greater Boston area is that the schools that have amazing music programs including top notch bands do not have marching programs, and a few of the bands with good marching components do not have strong overall music programs. A friend who is a band director and marched with Sancians claims there are WGI connections for high school color guards but few DCI connections as far as design and instruction for the overall band programs, a few notable exceptions being Tom Aungst and Dartmouth and Ed Devlin and King Philip. He claims DCI can still be as dirty a word as it was back in the day when Massachusetts had tons of drum corps and band directors hated drum corps and drum corps directors hated high school music programs. Considering that most of the corps have been gone for 35 to 40 plus years, it’s time to bury the hatchet. 

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17 minutes ago, IllianaLancerContra said:

Well, BD bought a marching band circuit, so I guess BAC had to have one too.   What other circuits are out there for Bloo & Crown to purchase?

Crown doesn’t need to buy a circuit. Crown has a great relationship with school band programs, or at least they did at one time. This is going back a bit, but I know a middle school band director who had some of his students watch Crown rehearse. It was a last minute idea and a few parents loaded up the minivans with their children and friends and off they went. It was just before dinner and Crown let the kids get up close and personal with the instruments, flags and rifles, etc. I shared this story on DCP when it happened and I remember people commenting that it happened frequently at Crown rehearsals.

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15 minutes ago, Tim K said:

I think a drum corps infusion could do a great deal for NESBA. I don’t see as many high school band shows as I would like, mainly due to schedule conflicts, but I enjoy NESBA shows and they remind me of the old CYO and Eastern Mass. Circuit shows with groups of differing sizes and abilities competing in a local atmosphere. There’s also a lot of heart. US Band shows that often include Dartmouth, Blackstone Millville, and King Philip have more of a DCI feel and can be a bit more competitive. If NESBA could attract more schools and be a bit more competitive, that would be a huge plus. 

Something I find curious in the Greater Boston area is that the schools that have amazing music programs including top notch bands do not have marching programs, and a few of the bands with good marching components do not have strong overall music programs. A friend who is a band director and marched with Sancians claims there are WGI connections for high school color guards but few DCI connections as far as design and instruction for the overall band programs, a few notable exceptions being Tom Aungst and Dartmouth and Ed Devlin and King Philip. He claims DCI can still be as dirty a word as it was back in the day when Massachusetts had tons of drum corps and band directors hated drum corps and drum corps directors hated high school music programs. Considering that most of the corps have been gone for 35 to 40 plus years, it’s time to bury the hatchet. 

Thirty years ago, NESBA had 60+ member bands. Now they are down to less than half that number.   Sound familiar? You can't blame things like the costs of touring,  props or staff.   Marching band, like drum corps is work, and some kids would rather do something else.

Having said that, I think this is a noble thing for BAC to do.  It's not the 80s anymore when we were desperate for members and recruiting from high school bands.  However, this does help keep the activity strong.  In New England, there are only 2 or 3 high school bands at a nationally competitive level.  But, there are MANY winter guards and drum lines in the winter.

Another cool thing about marching band in New England......even though the bands are small and not that many in number, the eastern Massachusetts area is home to dozens of DCI judges, so even my little band in Maine gets to be judged by many of the folks who were in Indy the month before.

Lastly,  a fact: there is not a single competitive high school marching band in ANY of the high schools in the city of Boston.

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1 hour ago, craiga said:

 

Lastly,  a fact: there is not a single competitive high school marching band in ANY of the high schools in the city of Boston.

I’m not sure any of the Boston high schools have full bands, period. Of the public schools Latin and Latin Academy may have bands. Many of the schools have choirs, jazz bands, and ensembles. Pacific Rim, a charter school used to have an orchestra. BC High and Catholic Memorial have excellent ensembles and choirs, and pep bands for athletic events, but not full bands. In general, instrumental programs in Boston schools end after 8th grade. 

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My alma matter (Malden) has become focused more on orchestral band rather than marching after the latest change in directorship.

Back in the late 80's, they were one of the top marching bands in the state and now they don't even exist as a marching band......

When Malden was a marching powerhouse in the state, there were a large number of direct ties to DCI - from members also participating in the Diplomats/Ambassadors, ECJ, the Citations, the Spartans, 27th and Boston - and staff being involved in all of them plus 27th, it is a sad state to see.

They had a real resurgence in the early 2000's through the combined efforts of Jim Lutz (Northstar member, Spartans staff) and Matt Tavares (Spartans member, Citations staff) but now Matt is running a middle school program in the city (with a NESBA percussion ensemble) and the high school has an orchestral based director (as well as the band parent association losing most of their ability to provide financial support due to the smoking ban killing bingo).

I don't think that we will ever see a real resurgence in Malden again for marching band due to the lack of financial support mainly, but I also believe that a number of other programs are facing the same pressures.

But, while all of that is happening in Malden, there has also been a resurgence in a number of other cities - Medford has built their program, Quincy/North Quincy is building a nice program. Look at how far Everett came within 20 years under Gene O'Brien and Charley Poole.....

It just shows, if towns are willing to invest, it is possible. BUT, the town/school district has to be more heavily involved than they used to be and provide funding. They can't rely on outside organizations providing all/most of the funding like they used to.

I like this move for NESBA/IAM. There are a LOT of synergies in this. From the major players involved in both organizations to the additional revenue stream that it can provide IAM, to the tie-ins that IAM can leverage with Great East. 

I am hopeful that this works out for everyone. It is more promising on the surface than the attempted tie-in that was tried with US Bands by NESBA to keep the "Big Boys" happy. That felt like a bad G7 type move......

Now comes the question though.... how do you increase NESBA participation amongst the bands that are historically more MICCA and MAC based? A lot of them like the stars system and the lower costs for MICCA vs. NESBA. Also, can you attract more of the MAC members from Connecticut and New York to make the circuit more truly regional? Only time will tell.

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