Submitted by Harvey Zuckman

For someone who didn’t take up instrumental playing until his senior year in college, this nominee embraced his playing with a vengeance and a brightness of spirit that is unmatched. In college, he was involved in student government, a background that would serve him well in his involvement with his home band and with Pride Bands Alliance. He had already secured a grant for his college band to buy chairs, perhaps because his college roommate was in band, and he hung out with band folks long before taking up an instrument. But he finally took a leap that would change his life. He asked the band director what instrument he could learn over the summer. Learning to play the tuba has changed his life.

His first Pride Bands event was the 1997 Clinton Inaugural performance, he is now approaching a 30-year anniversary with Pride Bands. That was soon followed up with participation with Pride Bands at Gay Games V in Amsterdam in 1998, where, on the Pride Boat Parade, the captain of his boat would give him a heads up to get his head, and his Sousaphone, down to pass under the myriad of bridges that crossed the route.
Anyone who has marched with him will recall that he doesn’t just march with his Sousaphone, he dances with it down the route!

He has been a member of the Atlanta Freedom Bands for 30 years, during which time, he served as president for five years, from 2009-2013. He set the organization on a path toward financial stability – turning years of operating deficits into a 15-year streak of surpluses, increased member participation across all ensembles, chaired the committee that produced the 2013 LGBA annual conference, chaired the search for the concert band’s music directors four times, and established a public performance calendar the band still uses today in communication with the other queer performing arts organizations in Atlanta.

Since then, he has served as Director of Marketing and Development raising over $211,000 in grant funding, developed the organization’s marketing plans, developed relationships ranging from the Atlanta Pride Committee to faculty at Emory and Georgia State Universities to local on-air news personalities and has made several media appearances on radio and TV on behalf of the band.

In 2016, he created the Atlanta Freedom Band’s Student Composer Residency Program to identify talented local collegiate students in music compositions and present their works. Since the program’s inception, AFB has performed 23 student works, many of which were world premieres. Additionally, he has shepherded AFB’s four commissioning projects: “Colors: A Celebration” from Tim Jansa for the 2013 conference and the 20thanniversary; “Journey to the Stratosphere” from Rossano Galante for AFB’s 25thanniversary; “Where No One Has Gone Before” from Erika Svanoe for AFB’s 30thanniversary; and “We the People” from Christopher Kyle Green, which will premiere in June 2026 as AFB’s offering to celebrate the Semiquincentennial.

With Pride Bands Alliance, he was a member of the Board from 2013 through 2023, serving as Conference Liaison and Committee Chair from 2014-2017, Vice President from 2014-2017, and President from 2017 to 2021.

In his work as the Conference Liaison and Committee Chair, he restructured the bid documents to reflect current practices and procedures. He also developed the Physical and Program Accessibility Checklist to give conference organizers and member bands ideas on how they can make their activities more accessible to wider ranges of audiences.

As VP and President, he managed the organization’s committee structures, working with committee chairs to ensure the organization met key objectives and timelines. He also ensured the organization met fundraising targets, leading to surpluses each year and he developed the first iteration of the Event Code of Conduct Policy.

Pride Bands’ conferences require an active collaboration between the Board and the host organization’s conference team. He was able to share his knowledge and provide the moral support to the teams working so hard to make the events a success. Each conference had its unique set of challenges to overcome, whether financial, programming, meteorological (Hurricane Harvey), and even immunological (COVID). He worked together with conference organizers to creatively solve these problems.

He also joined forces with others to coordinate Pride Bands’ appearances at the 2018 Paris Gay Games (Moira Wilmes) and World Pride 2019 in New York (Robb Blackwell).

Few others in Pride Bands Alliance have devoted so much time and energy over the decades as this nominee. Recognition for those contributions to Pride Bands Alliance is long overdue.