Conceiving, Creating, and Performing Music With Your Marching Band is an exhaustive discussion of the comprehensive process of planning, designing, and performing a music program with a marching band. The book was written by Gary Runsten whose forty years in the pageantry activity include extensive experience as a high school marching band director, a drum and bugle corps director, an arranger of music for multiple genres, a show designer, and many years as an adjudicator. He utilizes numerous real-life, anecdotal examples to inspire and expand conceptual thinking in all the aspects of preparing a marching band music program, its design and performance.
Gary Runsten holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the University of Michigan where he performed under Dr. William D. Revelli. He has also performed under many band conductors and composers including Frederick Fennel, Robert Reynolds, Vaclav Nehlybel, Karel Husa, Norman Dello Joio, Alberto Ginastera, and Richard Franko Goldman. His 40 years in the pageantry activity include 26 years as a band director at three high schools in Modesto, CA, where he was also District High School Music Chairman. During that time he also served as managing director of Valley Fever Drum & Bugle Corps, and coordinator of the Central Valley Guard and Percussion Circuit. He is past president of the Western Band Association and Drum Corps West, and served on Boards of Directors of California Music Educators Association Bay Section, Drum Corps West, and Drum Corps International. Mr. Runsten has served as an adjudicator for CMEA, DCW, DCI, WGI Band Regionals, independent band festivals, winter percussion, and most recently 14 years for the Western Band Association. He has studied arranging and composition with a number of teachers including Samuel Adler. He has written for a national publication, and has arranged for marching band, concert band, orchestra, and drum & bugle corps, as well as arranging the score of a three-hour original musical.
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