For Tarpon Band, Fundraising Never Ends

At 17, Emily Fredrickson has found her passion.

She appears barely able to contain her enthusiasm when discussing her trombone playing. "I love it," she says. "I can't imagine doing anything else."

Emily is president and lead trombone player of Tarpon Springs Marching Band.

The award-winning, nationally recognized group appears to have not only led Fredrickson at a young age to the musical instrument she loves but has trained her in the discipline she needs to give her talent backbone.

"It has taught me you have to prepare in advance," she says and notes she is already practicing for college auditions.

Passion and practice are the words that recur in conversations with students, parents and the marching band's director, Kevin Ford. But these days, another term - lack of money - strikes a sour note in their descriptions of the band.

For the first time since 1996, the band was unable to attend the recent Bands of America regional competition, in Atlanta, because of a shortage of funds.

It is now trying to raise enough money for future endeavors, including playing this spring at the Forte Festivals event in New York's Lincoln Center.

This year, as part of the band's efforts to finance its far-flung activities, Ford has already appeared at 22 fundraisers. "When we're not practicing, I'm out trying to raise funds," he says.

Still, even economic hard times can't put a damper on band members. They recently placed seventh in the Bands of America national competition, in Indianapolis.

That was no small feat in a competition that initially featured 500 bands. Previously, the band has been the Bands of America national champion in class AA division in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2006.

"Bands of America is like the Olympics of marching bands," said one band parent, Rob Hampton.

Hampton, like many of the young musicians' moms and dads, is deeply supportive of the band because of the effect it has had on his daughters, Sarah, 18; Sabrina, 16; and Shelley, 15. Besides awakening their musical talents, he says, "It teaches time management, dedication and the drive it takes to get to where you want to go."

The Sponger band brought its cutting-edge program, "Art at the Speed of Life," to the Indianapolis competition. Tarpon Springs was the only Florida band to earn a spot in this year's contest.

Ford and his co-producer band instructor, Frank Sullivan, go for performance and drama in the show. Good productions, Ford says, get both audiences and musicians "to examine what is possible and to explore the impossible."

"Our show is more of a production," says Ford. "It's more what you're use to seeing on stage rather than on a football field."

Against a backdrop of a picture of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," band members play their instruments while leaping, stretching and reclining.

The show has a narrator. Tarpon was one of the first to employ narration, Ford said, although other bands are now doing it.

The program explores the assumption that art is in all aspects of life. It tests the theory by examining through music, movement and narrative matters as diverse as the stock market and a da Vinci painting.

In the end, the program provides no easy answers. "We ask more questions that we answer," Ford explains.

For more information or to make donations go to www.tarponspringsband.com or call Karen at 727-423-3867.