Submitted by Leslie Becker and Michael Tolliver

It gives us great pleasure to nominate Marita Begley for the 2021 Pillars of Pride in recognition of her extraordinary service and accomplishments related to the LGBTQ band movement spanning nearly 40 years.

Over the past four decades Marita has been a true pillar of pride not only for members of the Big Apple Corps, but also for the LGBT Community at large in New York City and wherever she raises her marching baton to make music.

To illustrate how Marita Begley embodies the core values of the Pillars of Pride:

RED – Marita has been tirelessly supporting her home band and LGBA since 1982. Her first LGBA/Pride Bands Alliance event was “A Gay Night at the Hollywood Bowl” in 1984, and since then she has attended just under two-dozen LGBA/Pride Bands Alliance and Team Band events. In 2013, when the LGBA massed band was invited to march in the Inaugural Parade of President Barack Obama, she was awarded the coveted job of serving as artistic director for the 200-plus musicians, color guard, and twirlers from 34 member bands across the United States. For the 2009 Inaugural Parade, she served as drum major for the LGBA massed band in a historic performance that marked the first time an LGBT band marched in a Presidential Inaugural Parade. For California’s 2016 Palm Springs Pride Parade, Marita co-directed the 250-piece LGBA massed band, and at the 2019 Orlando Pride Parade, she co-directed that 250-piece LGBA massed band. Other LGBA honors include directing the 180-piece LGBA massed band in N.Y.C.’s 2008 Greenwich Village Halloween Parade and drum majoring for the 200-piece LGBA massed band in the Opening Ceremonies of the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago’s Soldier Field before a crowd of 60,000. Marita is no stranger to LGBA/Pride Bands Alliance events.

ORANGE – Marita has been both the marching director and drum major of the Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps serving in these leadership roles for 16 years and 26 years, respectively. Under her leadership, she has grown the band from fewer than 50 to over 200 members. Her steadfast dedication to the Big Apple Corps and the LGBTQ+ human rights movement at large garnered her the 2014 Stonewall Foundation’s Vision Award for her years of leadership as marching director and for her impact on the LGBTQ community via the band’s out, loud, and proud artistry. She accepted this award along with other honorees Jason Collins, Lee Daniels, and Isaac Mizrahi. Under Marita’s care, guidance, love, and artistry, she has created programs that allow everyone to participate regardless of a person’s level of musicianship or skill, or their ability to pay dues, or pay for a hotel room when the band travels. If someone wants to be in the band, they get to be in the band. It’s just that simple.

YELLOW – Marita has the enviable ability to know both what a crowd wants to hear on a parade/march route as well as what the band wants to play over again for months at a time. That takes an incredible ear and both an innate skill and years of experience. And she carefully and methodically guides the band from first read to rock-star like greetings on the parade route, teaching the music, dance routines and marching basics. However, she’s more than that – she often hides her clarinet skills behind her baton or drum major’s mace, but while he may be sitting with the thirds in symphonic band, she is first clarinet material. She just likes to talk. During band. A lot. Hence the third row…

GREEN – To meet Marita is to be her friend. Instantly. Her warmth, her openness, and her genuine interest in everyone she knows is why people flock to her, and it’s a big reason why the LGBAC keeps new and old members alike in the ranks. In band surveys we are often told that Marita’s welcome, both in email and in person, is what kept people coming back. One of the architects of the LGBAC’s “if we build it, they will come” plan, Marita always has the band’s front door swung wide open as she stands there ready to greet whoever comes calling.

BLUE – Marita never gives up on anyone or anything. She has been with the LGBAC and LGBA through thick and thin and has never wavered in her love for either. For over two decades, she has led the Big Apple Corps and LGBA in events large and small throughout New York City and the nation. Under her direction, not only has the band has quadrupled in size, it has attracted corporate sponsorship, quadrupled its donor base and annual budget, and raised the number and stature of its appearances, performing in iconic New York City venues (the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Madison Square Garden, MoMA–the Museum of Modern Art, CitiField, the High Line, Times Square and Herald Square, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, and the New York Botanical Garden) and at iconic events at home and on the road (the Hambletonian Race in the Meadowlands, the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, the New York City Marathon, FireWater in Providence, and the Syracuse State Fair). Marita’s dedication and tenacity is at the root of everything the LGBAC does.

VIOLET – In life we often see people who are rigid in their ways, not willing to change with the times. That is not the case with Marita. She was determined to have weekly rehearsals in the spring of 2020 when the world was on pause and worked to devise a way to keep the LGBAC membership engaged. Marita embraces the changing world around her and turns to her leadership team to come up with new and innovative ways to make music, to perform, to retain our identify and history while recognizing and accepting the changing face of the community. 

In closing we want to say that the members of the LGBAC are honored to have Marita at the marching band helm. To us, she is a pillar of pride. And that’s why we are nominating her today – she is deserving of this recognition.