Please join us as we partner with the Northern Illinois University Huskie Marching Band for the Red & Black Fall Classic High School Marching Band Festival. The show will be on Saturday, September 26, 2026 at the NIU Huskie Stadium in DeKalb. Of course, we’ll need YOUR help to make it a great success!

Signup form coming soon!

Adjudicators and clinicians include current & past BOA judges and Phantom Regiment design staff members. Adjudicators utilize the BOA adjudication system. Competitive classes are based on band size (number of musicians), not school enrollment. Bands can also choose to enter in “Exhibition” (you will still receive adjudicator commentary but will not be scored).

2026 Adjudicators

Program Consultant

Tony Hall

Tony Hall has been involved in the pageantry arts as an instructor, designer, consultant and adjudicator for over the last 40 years. He has written countless championship shows for high school marching bands & winter guards across the United States. Tony has designed visual programs for several drum & bugle corps including the Velvet Knights, Blue Knights, Sky Ryders and Garfield Cadets. He has been a member of Phantom Regiment’s visual team in many capacities including designer since 1993. Tony has judged all visual captions in the drum corps, marching band & winter guard arena.

He currently resides in Florida with his wife & two children.

Local Programs Director

Brian Hildreth

Brian Hildreth has been a member of the Phantom Regiment Board of Directors as the PRAA representative since 2024. He is a Rockford native who started marching drum corps in 1980 with the Phantom Regiment Cadets. He a member of Phantom Regiment from 1982-88.

He began his teaching career in Rockford at Dr. M. L. King Elementary School and Rockford East High School. He returned to the Rockford area after retiring as a music educator in Texas, where he taught at Edinburg North High School in Edinburg, Gregory Luna Middle School, John Marshall High School, and Winston Churchill High School in San Antonio TX.

Brian has been an instructor, designer, consultant, and adjudicator for more than last 30 years for some of top marching bands and drum corps in the United States. He has been on the visual staffs or caption head for Phantom Regiment, Sky Ryders, Capital Regiment, Blue Knights and Bluecoats drum and bugle corps.

Production Director & PR HOF

Bob Smith

Bob Smith has spent 35 years as a marching instructor, visual caption head, consultant and drill designer for drum corps and marching bands around the country. He aged out of Phantom Regiment in 1985. Bob was a marching instructor or Visual Caption Head (10- time caption Head) for Phantom Regiment (1987-1997, 2000-2004 2015,2016,2020, 2021), including Caption Head of the 1996 DCI World Championship. In 2022 he was the visual coordinator for The Phantom Regiment. From 2023-2015 became the Production Director for the Phantom Regiment.  He’s worked with some of the great pageantry masterminds of Drum Corps: DCI Hall of Fame members Michael Cesario, Dr. Dan Richardson and John Brazale, as well as noted drill designers Greg Cesario, John Sanchez, Tony Hall and Jeremy Hunt. Bob was also the visual caption head for the Tar Heel Sound Drum and Bugle Corps (1998), served as a visual consultant for the Colts Drum and Bugle Corps (2006-2009), and served as a visual consultant for the Spirit of Atlanta Drum and Bugle Corps (2011-2014, 2017,2019). In 2022 Bob was inducted into the Phantom Regiment Hall of Fame. 

Outside of the drum corps world, Bob taught  mathematics at Leyden High School in the west suburb of Chicago. He was  also the varsity tennis coach for the boys and girls teams. In 2011, he was inducted into the Illinois Tennis Coaches Hall of Fame. In 2019 IHSCA Girls Regional Tennis Coach of the Year and received the Illinois Distinguished Service Award from the IHSA.

Brass Caption Manager

Ryan Adamsons

A native of Springfield, Virginia, Ryan Adamsons is based in Chicago where he is an active performer, composer, and educator. His drum corps career began as a marching member of the Bluecoats from 1998 to 2002, and he continued with the organization as a brass instructor from 2003 to 2008 and again in 2011. In 2012 he joined the brass staff of the Santa Clara Vanguard, helping to build the brass program to their first DCI World Championship in nearly 20 years and their first ever Jim Ott High Brass Award in 2018. In addition to his duties with the World Class A corps, he joined the Open Class Vanguard Cadets as Brass Caption Manager and Brass Arranger in 2018, and continued his arranging duties 2019 while taking over as Assistant Brass Caption Manager for the A corps.

Ryan is also an active instructor, adjudicator, and clinician, working with countless groups in the US, Canada, and Japan.  In addition to writing for various marching ensembles, he has numerous works for jazz ensemble with his educational charts published and available through Kendor, and is the co-author of the book Rehearsing the Jazz Band published by Meredith Music.  He serves on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Jazz Orchestra developing their educational programs, is the Jazz Area Manager for The Midwest Clinic, and has several roles for the Jazz Education Network including as Conference Production Coordinator for their annual international conference.  He is a Denis Wick Artist Ambassador and plays Powell Custom trumpets and flugelhorns.

Bill Petersen

Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at VanderCook College of Music

Alex Kaminsky

Alexander Kaminsky was appointed Director of Bands and Associate Professor of Music at VanderCook College of Music in 2019 after a highly successful tenure at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL.  Previous to that, Kaminsky led the band programs at Buchholz High School, Lincoln High School, Auburndale High School, and Cocoa Beach Jr/Sr High School, all of which excelled under his direction.  In 2026, Kaminsky was named Artistic Director of The Naperville Winds, an art music-focused wind band in Illinois.  He holds degrees from the University of Florida and Indiana University, is active as an adjudicator, and is in demand as a guest conductor/clinician across the country.  In addition to regularly conducting honor bands, Kaminsky has served as guest conductor for military and adult bands including the United States Air Force Band, “Pershing’s Own” United States Army Band, United States Air Force Reserve Band, American Legion Band, Wheaton Municipal Band, and many others.

Throughout his 30-year career as a high school band director, Kaminsky’s ensembles consistently earned Superior ratings at all levels of evaluation.  In addition to earning straight Superior ratings at the Florida Bandmasters Association (FBA) State Concert Band Assessment for an unprecedented 21 years (the last 11 years with both his first and second bands), he is the only director in the history of the FBA to have had three concert bands from one school earn straight Superior ratings at State, and he achieved this three times (2009, 2018, and 2019).

Kaminsky’s high school bands performed at the Midwest Clinic (2005, 2009, 2014, and 2018), ABA National Convention (2014), CBDNA/NBA Southern Division Conference (2004 and 2014), FMEA State Conference (2014), Music for All National Concert Band Festival (2002 and 2012), and the National Wind Band Festival at Carnegie Hall (2009 and 2018).  In 2018, the Stoneman Douglas Wind Symphony was named a Mark of Excellence National Wind Band Honors winner as one of only ten 6A bands in the nation.  His marching bands consistently placed in the Florida Marching Band State Championship Finals, winning several FMBC State Championships (including 4 of his last 6 years as a high school band director), as well as being named a finalist band at BOA regional competitions.

Kaminsky has presented his clinic “How Can I Get My Band to Sound Like That” at various conferences and workshops, and his hands-on rehearsal demonstrations for the annual “How To Fix It” series at the FMEA Professional Development Conference received high acclaim with over 900 attendees in 2019.  In 2024, Kaminsky founded the VanderCook Band Director Summer Workshop and most recently presented “The Kaminsky Method” at the 2024 Midwest Clinic to a standing-room-only crowd. He has been awarded the National Band Association’s Citation of Excellence numerous times and has been recognized with several achievement awards for education including the 2026 Chicagoland Outstanding Music Educator Award, Florida’s 2019 FMEA Secondary Music Educator of the Year Award, FBA Oliver Hobbs Award, FBA Andrew J. Crew Award, National Honor Roll’s Outstanding American Teacher, Nobel Educator of Distinction, Teacher of the Year, and is listed in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.

Kaminsky is a Conn-Selmer Educational Clinician, an elected member of the prestigious American Bandmasters Association and the American School Band Directors’ Association, and also holds memberships in CBDNA, NBA, and Phi Beta Mu.  He has served on many state and national committees including the ABA Sousa/Ostwald Award Committee, was previously the NBA Student Chapters Advisor, and is currently Chair of the ABA School Bands Task Force.  Kaminsky is a National Board Certified Teacher and has been featured in several publications including The Instrumentalist, Teaching Music, Halftime Magazine, School Band & Orchestra Magazine’s “50 Directors Who Make A Difference,” Home Magazine’s “12 Exceptional Educators,” and most recently, Inspiring a Love of Music published by GIA Publications.

Performance time slots in respective classes are based on the date of entry for the registration form. If you need a special time slot to accommodate other activities that day, please let us know so that we may try to accommodate your needs.

Showcase your band in one of the best venues in the Midwest

The Red & Black Fall Classic is a wonderful opportunity for your students to perform under the lights on state-of-the-art turf. Plus, your staff can benefit from feedback from some of the most well-known adjudicators in the country.

Head to the stands for a special performance by the Northern Illinois University Huskie Marching Band under the direction of Dr. Thomas Bough. “The Huskie Marching Band,” says Dr. Bough, “is always eager to perform, be it for the enthusiastic fans in Huskie Stadium or for the hard-working and talented high school band members that perform and compete every weekend during the fall around the state of Illinois.”

All seats will be general admission, and the gates will open one hour before the first performance. For ticket and schedule information, please visit the event listing below.