Bands return to fiscal health

Samo’s band program is starting off the year on financially stronger footing.At the end of last year, the band  program was struggling fiscally to maintain their marching band alongside their various other programs, according to Santa Monica Artists Parents Association-Samohi Bands (SMAPA-Samohi Bands) President Alisa F. Stewart. However, with several fund-generating and preserving techniques in place, the band program is starting off the year with a solid fiscal plan.“After three years of spending more than they raised, the Samo bands are back in black,” Stewart said.Current band students have noticed the contrast between last year’s financial situation and this year’s.“[Last year] Corrigan would talk about how [marching band] didn’t have enough money. Maybe we make it one year, and maybe we make it two years; it just all depended,” junior band student Mollie Bernstein said. “We thought the marching band program was going to get cut. Just recently, [the Santa Monica-Education Foundation (SMMEF) got $4.8 million and so now the band program has more money and I think we can maintain marching band.”According to Stewart, the band program’s economic health can largely be attributed to cutting spending.“Directors Terry Sakow and Kevin McKeown have gone out of their way to cut costs in the bands’ annual budget, reducing total band expenses by over $26,000 compared to last year,” Stewart said.Furthermore, according to Stewart, donations from friends and families of band students, as well as charitable foundations, have supported the band’s declining funds.“Our June 2012 appeal to band families and supporters resulted in direct donations, ticket sales and ‘cake walk’ donations at the bands’ Pops Concert that amounted to nearly $13,000,” Stewart said. “We are especially grateful for the $3,000 donation from a local resident and long-time supporter of arts, and $5,000 that came from the Dana and Albert R. Broccoli Charitable Foundation.”According to Stewart, contributions from the families of members of the band program in response to requests from the band program have helped pay for various aspects of the programs.According to Stewart, marching band and color guard families responded well to the request for a $600 per-student contribution to meet the annual operating expenses of the marching band. Each $600 donation helps pay for extra musical instruction, sheet music, travel fees and other miscellaneous costs.“Marching bands are a wonderful, distinctively American tradition, but they don’t come cheap,” Stewart said.According to Stewart, for the first time, families who have students in concert band but not in marching band were also asked to contribute $200, so that the band program can cover further purchases.“Our current concert band budget does not have room for badly needed instrument purchases, or for the types of specialized instruction known as clinics and master classes, which can greatly benefit students by enhancing musical concepts and improve or strengthen students’ technique,” Stewart said. “Once the bands’ instrumentation needs are met, the directors will be able to reexamine the budget and perhaps consider offering specialized instruction.”Band students also have ideas for maintaining the bands’ fiscal health.“I hope that the band program will maintain its financial health well and use their money wisely by trying new things like orchestra [did with] The Beatles concert, maybe think of their own [fundraisers],” band member junior Ava Pomerantz said.Stewart believes that the band program is finally on the right track for the future.“Assuming roughly consistent student participation and contributions, the band [program] should be able to sustain itself financially at this level for several years,” Stewart said.Alison GuhArt Directoraguh@thesamohi.com