Founded by George Cavender in 1971, the Big Ten Band Directors Association is one of the oldest associations of its kind. With a membership consisting of each institution’s Director of Bands, Athletic Band Director, and all other band faculty, the stature of its members, both past and current, is clear. These band directors are leaders in the profession and have helped the field develop into what it has become today through their positions at their respective flagship institutions of the Big Ten Athletic Conference.
The BTBDA meets each year at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, IL, and its investment in sponsoring quality sessions at the clinic is well documented. The association has sponsored twenty-one sessions since 1986, featuring prominent composers such as Michael Colgrass, Karel Husa, Warren Benson, Gunther Schuller, and Frank Ticheli. Additionally, the association has shown its dedication to the advancement of the band repertoire through commissioning seven new works from 1986-2014, four of which were born out of a commissioning contest that spanned from 1998-2005.
This study is the first of its kind to document a band association formed of members bound by a specific athletic conference. Research of the Big Ten Band Directors Association shows numerous examples of how a band conference association can contribute to different facets of the field (e.g. commissioning, clinic session sponsorship, etc.). The profession’s knowledge of the BTBDA is important as it highlights how these associations are contributing to the landscape of the field.