Dear UMMB Alumni and Friends,
I am writing on behalf of the UMass Minuteman Marching Band, with some incredible news:
On Sunday, April 17th ,
The George N. Parks Minuteman Marching Band Building
will be opening its doors!
To be clear, the official commemoration of the GNP Minuteman Marching Band Building will take place next November 5 on Homecoming weekend. So make your plans now for that historic event!
However, the UMMB is ready and poised to inhabit our long awaited home. As you might imagine there are still a number of details that remain unfinished with the new Band Building, but it is close enough for us to share it’s potential with our Minuteman Band family. Sunday, April 17 is also the annual Concert Band concert at 2pm in the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall. The concert will be dedicated to the memory of the incredible man who brought us all together, George N. Parks. The concert should afford us another opportunity to celebrate the amazing legacy the Minuteman Band built and continues!
Please join us for some great music and support your fellow band members. Then, following the concert we’ll all meet in the FAC lobby and walk to the GNP Marching Band Building. KKΨ and TBΣ will be hosting a reception and we’ll be able to take you through the new facility to see first hand the vision Mr. Parks had for our program. I’m sure this will also offer a time for many to share stories of their times together in Amherst.
This is an incredible and historical moment for our Minuteman Band! A time when we wish to have you by our side, to make this not just the opening of ‘a band building’ but to make this Our Home Forever! GNP is the individual who made this new chapter of our history come to life, but you, you are the Minuteman Marching Band, and it is you who have built this home, ‘for a Dollar a day’…and brick by brick!
So, as we bring this year to a close, and open a new chapter in the history of this unique and vital organization, please join us on Sunday, April 17th for the Concert Band concert at 2pm and the inaugural opening of the George N. Parks Marching Band Building.
We look forward to this wonderful occasion and hope to see you there!
‘Always Together’
Thomas P. Hannum
Interim Director – The Minuteman Marching Band
Concert Band will take place at 2PM on April 17, at the Fine Arts Center, Umass, Amherst. For tickets and information, go to
umasstix.com or call the Fine Arts Center Box Office 413-545 2511.