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Tom Bough
Tom Bough

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News Release

Contact: Mark McGowan, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472

August 15, 2005

New director of NIU's Huskie Band
ready to 'take the field' for football fans

DeKalb — Tom Bough is not a Northern Illinois University alum, but his on-campus interview for the Huskie Band director's job was a homecoming of sorts.

As a member of the Rockford-based Phantom Regiment Drum & Bugle Corps in 1986 and 1987, the teenager from southwest Missouri and his contrabass horn took the field in competition inside Huskie Stadium.

“During the interview, they took me on the field. I looked up at the stands and, man, for a second, I was 18 again, with the hair and everything,” said Bough, the man NIU expects to continue and build on the Huskie Band's century-long tradition of excellence.

“Intercollegiate Athletics is very excited that Tom has joined the Huskie family as the director of athletic bands,” NIU Athletics Director Jim Phillips said. “We're very much looking forward to continuing the close relationship Athletics enjoys with the band program as it is a focal point for Intercollegiate Athletics.”

“Tom Bough brings a good mix of experience, enthusiasm and enterprise,” said Paul Bauer, director of the NIU School of Music, “in addition to his high level of musicianship and established record of research and artistry that should serve NIU well.”

Bough comes to DeKalb after six years in Carbondale, where he directed the athletic bands and taught tuba and euphonium at Southern Illinois University.

Membership in SIU's marching band nearly tripled under his leadership, an accomplishment already in progress here. NIU's ranks for this fall have grown 60 percent to about 170 – Bough credits a springtime meeting with the band's student leaders – and could climb to 200 with last-minute recruiting over the next couple weeks.

He's already raised the band's presence by sending Huskie Band members to every summer orientation session “just to shake hands and generate excitement,” and will take the whole band to the Huskie Bash.

Both activities are virgin territory for the Huskie Band and things Bough was able to make happen through the care of Bauer, who provided a laptop, an NIU e-mail account and an NIU phone number, and staff in Athletics and Student Housing and Dining Services.

He also has recruited two former Huskie Band leaders to lend a hand, and is making plans for “a big alumni band” to perform in 2006.

“People are just rolling out the red carpet for us,” Bough said. “I'm overwhelmed by the support and encouragement.”

Bough earned his graduate degrees from Arizona State University and his undergraduate degree from Southwest Missouri State University. His experience as a conductor includes athletic bands, concert bands and brass bands at the university or professional level.

A former member of the Walt Disney World All-American College Band, his research and artistry interests include articles on conducting, low brass pedagogy and music education as well as wind literature analysis and guest conducting.

His first band camp in Huskie country began Saturday, with leadership training for chosen students, and continued Sunday as younger students were granted early access to residence halls.

Some already have provided ideas about the season's shows, music for which is currently playing on Top 40 radio and being arranged by “some of the best people in the country.” Bough wants to make sure NIU students and other young fans of the Huskies hear songs they know and enjoy.

“Student input is critical,” he said. “It's an incredible opportunity to work with students of this caliber. Their commitment is inspiring.”

New students are learning the band's mission: to entertain, to support and to educate. The “education” plank is highly important to Bough, a lifelong musician who's discovered his passion for teaching has surpassed his love of performing.

Bough grew up in a musical family, singing in church choir and listening to his dad plucking out folk songs on the acoustic guitar. “My dad was a college student in the '60s. I think it was mandatory to play the guitar,” he laughed. “My grandmother played piano for silent movies.”

His father also played the trombone, which Bough inherited when he began middle school and enrolled in band. When the director asked if he'd switch to tuba, Bough accepted.

“I had a great time in junior high band, so I continued to high school,” he said. “It was fun and easy for me.”

Despite plans to become “the next great orchestral tuba player,” he begrudgingly took the advice of his undergraduate professors to major in music education. Meanwhile, he practiced tuba “six hours a day in a room with my tuner and my metronome” until he began to miss the teamwork of ensembles.

After college, while performing professionally as a tubist for orchestras, brass quintets, concert bands and Dixieland groups, Bough heard from a friend with an opportunity to teach a band during its director's two-month maternity leave. “In a week,” he said, “I was hooked on teaching.”

The two disciplines go hand in hand, he said.

“If you want to be a great director, you have to become an outstanding musician in your own right. Performing makes me a better teacher,” said Bough, who eventually taught high school for seven years. “Now it's more dear to me than performing. I get more emotional satisfaction from leading the ensemble.”

Bough and his wife, Erica, a professional trumpeter, live in Aurora with Stephen, their 19-month-old son. They are expecting a daughter in October.

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