If Christopher Hoch had let early failure deter him from chasing his dreams, The Ohio State University Marching and Athletics Band wouldn’t look or sound the same as it does today.
Hoch, director of OSU Marching and Athletics Bands since 2015, was in the same shoes as the musicians he now directs. As a freshman trombonist, Hoch didn’t make the cut for the elite group of 228 marching and playing musicians, and called home sobbing.
“I wouldn’t be the person today if it had not been for that experience,” Hoch says.
Instead of giving up, Hoch doubled down on honing his trombone. He was involved in every musical opportunity at OSU, playing in jazz band, pep band and concert band.
“I think it taught me perseverance,” Hoch says. “It taught me how to stick with it, how to improve myself, how to become a better musician and how to become more in tune with my own physical needs.”
He’s also able to understand the experience of students who go through the same situation each year.
“The tryouts for Ohio State are an intense process,” Hoch says. “They were when I was in the band, and they are now. Having been through it myself both on the happy side of things and on the not-so-happy side of things, I can empathize with most of our students as they go through that process.”
A Musical Upbringing
Hoch developed his love of music earnestly. His mother played piano and taught music. Both of his parents were educators.
Hoch attended St. Paul Catholic School up until high school, when he attended Westerville City Schools.
“I wanted to attend Westerville North High School to go to a bigger school and be a part of a larger community,” he says. “My parents said, ‘Well, if you’re going to the big high school, you need to do something other than just go to class, so you need to pick something to be a part of. How about band?’”
He quickly fell in love with the marching band and music at Westerville North. As a graduating senior, he knew he wanted to make music a part of his life, but not necessarily as a career. He resisted his parents’ career suggestions, but after a year of practice and playing at OSU and getting as involved as he could, his passion for music was solidified.
After his second year, Hoch auditioned for OSU’s School of Music. After being accepted, he decided he wanted to teach.
“I decided, well, if I’m going to do music, I’m going to be a teacher like Mom and Dad,” he says, “and realized very quickly that I had a passion and talent for that, too.”
Hoch earned master’s degrees in instrumental conducting and music education in 2002. He spent seven years as the director of bands at Hayes High School in Delaware before completing his Ph.D. of music education in 2012. At OSU, he served as assistant director for one year and associate director of the marching and athletic bands for two years before being chosen as interim director in 2015. After that year, he took on the official position as director.
Dots on Paper
Hoch is responsible for viral halftime shows performed at OSU, such as the “Tribute to Classic Video Games,” which he created for the 2012 homecoming game. He remembers being a band kid who would sit at home after rehearsals, putting dots on paper as he practiced writing his own drills. He studied band charts with fascination.
Dr. John Woods, the OSU band director during Hoch’s college years, took him on as a private student during his senior year, and later brought him on as a graduate assistant, helping him learn to design shows.
OSU has only one class – Marching Band Techniques, which Hoch now teaches – dedicated to show design. It was a rare thing, Hoch says, to gain the level of experience he did before his 2000 graduation with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and music education.
Occasionally, Hoch invites interested students to study drill writing with him. Graduate students are required to study show design and drilling writing, so Hoch works with them each year.
“It really is a sort of specialized thing that not everybody gets into unless they show an aptitude or an interest in it,” he says. “But when they are, boy, am I happy to share what I know with them.”
TBDBITL
The OSU Marching Band celebrates its 145th anniversary this year.
The brilliance of the OSU Marching Band, Hoch says, is its mixture of tradition and innovation. The band still performs staples: 1928’s ramp entrance, 1936’s Script Ohio, 1965’s rendition of “Hang on Sloopy.”
“Some of those great traditions that come along don’t happen unless you’re innovative,” Hoch says. “We always like to look back to our past, but also be inventive and creative in how we develop our future.”
Beyond the Shoe, Hoch has directed the OSU Marching Band in national and international performances.
In 2015, he took the band overseas to play before an NFL game at Wembley Stadium in London. They performed a segment called “The British Invasion” with the music and imagery of iconic British music groups and formations of London’s famous landmarks.
Another memorable moment for Hoch was the first trip to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2018, which turned out to be the coldest day in the history of the event. His first Rose Bowl trip, in January 2019, was yet another milestone, and he and the band were able to relive that experience with another trip to Pasadena in January 2022.
“I’m really proud of the Ohio State marching band and of what we’ve built in the Ohio State marching band,” Hoch says. “It really is a group of people from all walks of life. They come from all over the place to be with us because, like me when I was growing up … they fell in love with music.”
Claire Miller is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback is welcome at cmiller@cityscenemediagroup.com.
