Spanier to Retire 21-Years After Bringing the Tulane University Marching Band Back
The Tulane marching band disbanded a few years after Green Wave football abandoned old Tulane Stadium and moved to the Superdome for its games. The program laid dormant for decades before Tulane president Scott Cowen was guided to make a commitment: if sports was to be an emphasis in Uptown New Orleans, the entire gameday experience needed to be emphasized.
Background on Tulane's Retiring Director of Bands
In 2004, Barry Spanier was hired to resuscitate a program that had not had a musician in decades. Spanier had a pretty impressive resume: he had a wealth of experience developing musical ensembles from the ground up; he produced music for Olympic ceremonies, even heading up music for World Expositions; he served as associate director of the famed University of Southern California (USC) Trojan Marching Band, and created orchestras and bands at New York University and abroad.
For World Expo 88 in Brisbane, Australia, he designed and directed a marching band program in an environment that previously had no such tradition. For the Sydney Olympics in the year 2000, he directed 2,000 young musicians from 23 nations and blended them into a cohesive ensemble, the largest marching band in history. As leader of the New York University Orchestra, Spanier revitalized the program and built it from a rudimentary 19-piece string group to an 85-piece symphony plus secondary orchestra and various chamber groups.
He's just knows how to put things together from scratch, even from his days as a college student.
"When I was at USC as a student," Spanier reminisced, "I was a music major, and (a group of us) started doing musicals, original shows, annual productions. We called it "Rock Theatre," just before MTV came out. Taking songs, rock songs mostly, and creating vignettes."
When Jerry Buss bought the Los Angeles Lakers in the late '70s, Spanier and others were recruited to start the Laker Band, this shortly after Earvin "Magic" Johnson was drafted.
Welcome to New Orleans, Barry
Scratch was where he was starting when he was tasked with putting the Tulane University Marching Band (TUMB) together in 2004. When he was offered the job of bringing the TUMB back to life, he considered it a "magical opportunity."
A year of recruiting, hitting the pavement, glad-handing, and knocking on doors brought Spanier to the Fall of 2005, the first opportunity to showcase the talent of the musicians he had enlisted to begin the building process. Any New Orleanian can tell you what happened in August of that year. TUMB was actually holding its inaugural band camp with 25-students when Hurricane Katrina struck,
"The last day of camp was Saturday (August 27) when all the other freshmen arrive with their parents on campus. (Tulane president) Scott Cowen said, 'Drop your stuff in your room and come to McAllister Auditorium.' Everybody (including Cowen) was in shorts. And he said, 'Welcome, now go home.'"
Spanier remained resolute. He gathered displaced students to perform at Tulane’s first post-Katrina football game in Houston. And in January, 2006, TUMB began preparing for Mardi Gras, the band’s official New Orleans debut.
Though Spanier is given credit for getting TUMB started again, he is quick to acknowledge the Tulane students who were there before he ever arrived on campus.
"Tulane students got together (before I got here) and organized their own marching band," Spanier thought back. "They even raised money for band uniforms for the year I arrived. The support was incredible."
TUMB Today
Today, the Tulane University Marching Band has over 100-members, the largest in the school's history. The Band performs in both the Fall and the Spring and not just during football games. Thursday, in preparation for the ESPN Prime Time game against East Carolina, TUMB has been asked to perform for the early afternoon segments of GameDay for ESPN. In the Spring, it's Mardi Gras parades and their annual Spring Concert. And Spanier has led Tulane musicians onto the national and international stages, from the 2020 Dubai World Expo to appearances on American Idol, Wheel of Fortune, Fox & Friends, MTV, and NCIS: New Orleans.
“Not many in the collegiate band and music education profession can lay claim to starting a Division 1 university band program,” said Dylan Parrilla-Koester, assistant director of Tulane Bands. “Barry’s vision and leadership led to the genesis of not just a music ensemble, but a community that spans generations of Tulanians.”
Sarah Hamdy, one of this year's TUMB Drum Majors, waxed nostalgic when thinking of what Spanier has meant to her and the thousands of students who have been a part of the Tulane Band program over the years.
"He's been someone that you can always talk to," Hamdy recalled. "Someone very lovable, someone you can always rely on and depend on."
"The one word I think about...is approachable," said TUMB Drum Major Radley Rawls. "When I started touring colleges (in high school), I came here to New Orleans to tour Tulane, and I got a private tour from Barry as a junior in high school. He is unwaveringly friendly. We are really going to miss him."
"We are very sad that he is leaving," Hamdy told us emotionally, "but we also wish him the very best moving on. It shows, in every rehearsal, that TUMB really loves (him)."
In honor of his retirement and the 20th anniversary of TUMB’s re-establishment, Tulane will celebrate Spanier throughout the 2025 season, including a special halftime performance and recognition of him during the East Carolina game and during halftime of the Army matchup.
Parilla-Koester wrapped up, “For hundreds of current students and alumni, TUMB remains the centerpiece of their connection to Tulane. Most university events — from convocation, to homecoming, to carnival — are defined by the band. His impact can’t be overstated.”
"The student experience has to be the priority in everything we do," Spanier pointed out. "Building that culture of expectations, hard work, but always having fun doing it."
"I'm going to miss it," Spanier said as he pointed toward the end of this December as his retirement target. "First of all the students, just being around them, that energy, and every year it's fresh. Seeing them succeed, become friends."
Spanier concluded, "It's a great honor...especially here (at Tulane), to build something to last."
Tulane University Liberal Arts and Public Relations departments contributed to this article.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.