January 2013

The 2nd annual NIU Concert Band Festival, presented by the NIU Huskie Marching Band and the Phantom Regiment, is a little more than a month away (March 1 & 2). With some great clinicians and a wonderful concert hall, this is a great educational experience for both middle school and high school concert bands.

Held in a non-competitive, festival setting, clinicians include Major Bryan Miller (Air National Guard Band of the Midwest), Steve Squires (Roosevelt University) and Dr. Thomas Bough (Northern Illinois University).

Each band comes away with a studio quality recording of the concert, a well as recordings of clinicians’ commentary and the live clinic held after each performance.

As an added bonus, the NIU Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Ronnie Wooten will perform for all of the participants.

For more information, click here.

We are deeply saddened by the passing of Helen Haddad. Helen was the wife of Phantom Regiment founder Alex Haddad, as well as mother of two daughters who marched in the corps. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the entire Haddad family.

Memorial service for Helen will be on Saturday, January 19 at Noon at Fitzgerald Funeral Home on Mulford Road in Rockford. For more information – read it here.

Dr. Dan, one of the founding members, shares his thoughts about Helen Haddad…

Helen was the wife of Alex Haddad and the mother of two daughters in the corps. Helen was like a second mother to so many of us. She was kind and compassionate and loving to her entire family which included so many of us in the early Phantom Regiment. Her home was always a place where we always felt welcomed. She opened her home and her heart to us and was comforting to so many of us members when we felt down. Her smile was infectious and charming. Her soft spoken nature however never got in the way of taking great care of us in the corps.

I remember many times simply showing up at her home without an invitation only to be welcomed by Helen with food, games (ping-pong, especially) and we would listen to 78 rpm records of drum corps and listen to Alex tell stories about his time in the VFW and before. Helen was our corps mom and did every task a support person could possibly do. We all loved her very much and the example she gave us as a great staff member to her children .
   – Dan Richardson (Danny)

The quiet winter is about to get a little louder…brass & percussion camp is this weekend! Camp will be at Jacobs High School in Algonquin.

For location, directions and schedule – see www.regiment.org/camp.

A special shout out to our friends at the Pioneer Drum & Bugle Corps! They’ve loaned us a bus over the years for us to use during the winter months, and this weekend, they’re bringing down a temporary replacement bus and driver for us to use! Thanks a ton to director Roman Blenski and the Pioneer! (The cold winter froze up the starter on the bus we have in town and there’s not enough time to get it repaired).

MEMBERS – by now you should have received the many emails from corps director, Dan Farrell, regarding the bus to camp plan which is different from our camps in Rockford.

We already knew we had the best supporters in the world…but it was proven once again. We were able to meet our fundraising goal for our year end campaign…thank you!

On December 27 our executive director posted a letter stating that with 4 days to go, we were $8,100 short of our goal for the year.

Our phans and supporters came through to help us meet our goal! We raised $8,900 in those few days. We can’t thank all those that donated enough!

Thank you!

PS If you missed the letter or would still like to donate – read here.

The Phantom Regiment is pleased to announce the 2013 program:

For more information as well as the musical selections, click on the graphic above.

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