We are proud and honored to announce that the Rockford Area Music Industry will be inducting the Phantom Regiment into RAMI Hall of Fame. The induction will take place at the 20th annual RAMI awards event held Friday, April 29, 2011.
The RAMI awards will begin at 7 p.m. and are being held at the Tebala Shrine Temple. Admission is $5, and the doors open at 6:45pm. For more information, go to www.ramiawards.com.
Phantom Regiment was presented the award for Music Outreach Organization four years in a row from 2007 to 2010. Phantom Regiment has also been honored for Outstanding Achievement in 2001 and 2003.
Longtime Regiment music arranger Jim Wren, was a recipient of the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor that has been granted to the individuals who have contributed the most to Rockford’s musical heritage. The coveted award, first bestowed upon Rockford’s Cheap Trick in 1991, will be one of Jim’s prized possessions as he reflects on his accomplishments and contributions to music education and the drum corps community as a whole.
Phantom Regiment, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006, is a youth arts organization with a world-renowned drum and bugle corps as its crown jewel. The organization also sponsors a Fall Marching Band Festival for area high schools, a Drum Major Camp for aspiring high school drum majors and leaders and a Drum Camp for high school students.
The drum and bugle corps was crowned World Champion at the Drum Corps International World Championships in 1996 and 2008.
Phantom Regiment’s Show of Shows, which features the Rockford Register Star as its title sponsor, annually draws more than 3,000 fans to Boylan Stadium. The date of this year’s event is Sunday, July 17. The corps also sponsors Drums Across the Tri-State, a show in Charleston, W.Va., which attracts many high school bands as spectators who use the event as a learning tool.
The Fall Marching Band Festival, which has been held at both Rockford College and Harlem High School, is open to all area bands. This year, it will take place at NIU’s Huskie Stadium in partnership with the Huskie Marching Band. The band show provides high-quality adjudicators as well as the option to have a hands-on clinic before the show or immediately following the band’s performance. This year the event is Saturday, October 1.
Phantom Regiment, which is endorsed by some of the top musical instrument and uniform manufacturers in the world, assists many area bands by loaning its equipment during the school year. Some of the groups to use Phantom Regiment’s equipment include Winnebago, Beloit Memorial, Stillman Valley and United Township high schools as well as Northern Illinois University’s marching band.
