New & Improved Imperial Teteques Band

(look, we even have our own march!!!!!)


We are community band in Williamsport, PA, called the Imperial Teteques Band...funny name, I know, but there's a story behind it. We started out as a quartet, four brass players with no experience. Due to their lack of experience, they jokingly named themselves the "Triple Tongue Quartet" (get it, they couldn't triple tongue...musician jokes!). This got shortened to TTQ, which, apparently, when spelled out, is spelled Teteque.
This band has been around since 1897, and has a long and storied history. Originally a masonic band (and supposedly, the oldest masonic band in the word), the Teteques were open to masonic men only. Around 1950-60, the band was opened to non-masons as well. In the late 90s, the band experienced a membership slump, and so finally, in 2000, it opened its doors to women as well. We had many great years with full attendance at our concerts, which we presented twice a year. Gradually, the band members have aged...many have retired, many have died, and over the last 10 years, we lost our reputation as well as several members who just quit.


We have a fantastic and energetic new director, but now our membership averages around 15 musicians. This isn't enough for us to put on a concert, and so we are in a serious slump. Not only that, but our music library is ancient, our percussion instruments are in need of repair/replacement, and we can't even afford to buy an ad in our paper to advertise ourselves.

We have been working very hard to come up with some new ideas for the band so that we can continue playing as a group, and hopefully bring in new members. We're putting ourselves out in our community, making people aware of who we are, and what we do. So many people don't even know we exist! Thing is, it's incredibly difficult to do so on our own funds, which are often stretched to the breaking point.

One of our campaigns we are running right now is called #SaveOurBand, and we are accepting donations...every dollar helps! I am asking you to pass this along to your friends, anyone who might be interested in helping us preserve a piece of local history. Please considering lending a hand! We also will accept used instruments as well, we have a particular need for percussion equipment.