Conference tournaments are about basketball but also so much more: the fans, bands, cheerleaders, etc. The CAA Tournament is taking place this weekend in Washington, DC, and we could not be more excited to be there in person! HoopsHD will be covering all of the action so you can look forward to a cascade of coverage in the days ahead. Jon Teitel keeps things going with Stony Brook Director of Bands Justin Stolarik, who talked about his band’s Spotify playlist and playing at Carnegie Hall.
You conduct the Marching and Varsity Bands for the Stony Brook Athletic Bands Program: what instruments does that include? A LOT: piccolo/clarinet/alto sax/tenor sax/trumpet/mellophone/trombone/baritone/sousaphone/drum set. A marching band has a full drumline but we have the same kind of instrumentation. It is almost like a big band vibe with your brass/woodwinds.
You have a pair of degrees from Texas/Florida and worked for athletic bands at other schools including Oklahoma/Wisconsin: what is the biggest difference between bands at a small school vs. a large school? Resources are often the biggest difference. I come from systems that have been around for 100 years, but the band at Stony has only been around less than 20 years. However, I run it like a band from a Power 6 conference: we are no less and should not be treated any differently.
You have been a musician/conductor for several different groups: what is it like to play at Carnegie Hall? It was pretty special the 2 times I played there. I played once as a grad student at Texas doing a world premiere of a very famous composer’s piece. I played again several years later with the Brooklyn Wind Symphony. It is a special place: the groups who have performed on that stage are so outrageously impressive that just to be within those walls was pretty extraordinary.
You have worked with some amazing performers including Will.i.am (of the Black Eyed Peas) and Everlast (of House of Pain): who is the best person you have collaborated with in the past, and who is at the top of your wish list for the future? Will.i.am was a great experience and he is the nicest person. We did a pep rally performance at LA Live with the Wisconsin Band before the Rose Bowl. The Lakers were playing that night and during intermission fans are able to walk outside and hang out on the plaza. Everlast did “Jump Around” and Will did another song and the timing was perfect so there were a lot of Laker fans watching us. I also worked with Ed Shaughnessy, who was the original drummer on The Johnny Carson Show. When I was in Texas I did a gig with a local Austin band called Ghostland Observatory that was great. I would LOVE to do a gig with Lizzo…which is an understatement! She has taken her celebrity and showcased the importance of playing in a band. Middle schoolers who see her playing flute with her instrumental talent must be amazed: she has been such an incredible advocate for music education. We do a 2-hour spring concert every April (www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF2vbKMW3os&t=369s): I call it “Vegas meets rock concert meets Broadway”. It is put on by us for people who want to see us, rather than our usual effort to support our school sports teams or school president. This will be the 5th year we do it and my elementary school music teacher (Ann Abbate Van Cleef, who got me started in band at East Quogue Elementary School in the 1980s) attends every year.
What do you think the role of a college band is today, and how much time/energy is involved? The role is to support our teams and encourage school spirit by the crowd. I tell the band all the time that when the team wins we have a part in that…and if the team does not win then we have a part in that too. We try to create an environment that is conducive to getting the team hyped up to win. Our band rehearses anywhere from 4-7 hours/week. Football game days are an 8-hour day but basketball games are only a 3-hour commitment. It is also a class so they do get credit for it.
What kind of music does the band play at basketball games during the season? We have a rotation of about 100 tunes. Since we are so deep into the year I can choose any 1 of them and the band is ready to play them. We have a Spotify playlist of 136 original tunes (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2n296MA4KOA4ytp44kXL2t?si=609abf4da71042f9&nd=1): Chicago, AC/DC, Lady Gaga, Blondie, etc. We are not there just to appeal to 1 generation of music: we have current students/parents/alums/children so we need to have a diverse playlist.
How does your school decide who gets to go to DC, and what will it mean to you to see your group doing its thing in front of a national TV audience? The NCAA requirement for postseason basketball tournaments is 29 musicians plus 1 director. The numbers are limited for NCAA/conference tourneys so I keep it safe at 29 band members/1 director. My #1 priority is instrumentation: you do not want to have 1 sousaphone and 10 kazoos there! Availability is also important so I do not care as much whether you are a freshman or senior. The band needs to sound the way it should with a certain # of clarinets/trumpets/etc. Our full band is split into 2-3 smaller groups so they do not need to attend every single home game during the normal season. Every member has to attend a minimum of 7 games this semester and (as you might expect) the ones who really love basketball go to all of them. If everything else is equal but somebody attended more events…then that is the tiebreaker/reward.
Does your band have anything extra-special planned for this weekend? Not really. We do not get to travel a lot so the band is super-excited to go to a neutral-site tourney and help control the environment of the arena. We will even have some DC-area alums in attendance! When we were in the America East we would just do a day trip to the gym of the higher-seeded team since all the games were held on campus sites. I come from Power-6 schools so events like the Big 10 tourney would involve a bunch of pep rallies/fan events. Hopefully we will have some free time so the students can enjoy DC when we are not playing.
Any predictions for your 1st game on Saturday night? No…but that is not because I am playing games with you. It is called “March Madness” for a reason so it does not always matter what you are ranked. I do not even do a bracket anymore because it is useless! What makes it so special is seeing all of the teams take on the challenge of winning their tourney. That being said, the more we win then the longer we get to stay. We will support our team so that they can do what they need to do to get a win.