Dan Farrell - DCI Hall of Fame

Dan Farrell

Inducted in 2016

Joining the Rockford, Illinois corps as a baritone player at the young age of 12, Dan Farrell has called Phantom Regiment home ever since, as he has worked with the corps in a number of capacities for more than four decades.

Joining the corps’ brass staff in the 1980s, Farrell worked under the tutelage of DCI Hall of Fame members Jim Wren and Dan Richardson and quickly helped the corps maintain a consistent level of competitive success.

One year after he was tapped to take over as caption head of Regiment’s brass section in 1988, the corps won Drum Corps International’s brass caption award while achieving one of its highest finishes ever.

“The great brass lines for which the Regiment has been known through the years have been a product of Dan’s abilities,” said former Phantom Regiment brass arranger and 1994 DCI Hall of Fame inductee Jim Wren. “I can honestly say that he took my arrangements and turned them into ‘music.’”

In the 1990s Farrell transitioned into the role of Phantom Regiment program coordinator, a position he fills yet today. He has guided the creative process among Regiment’s design and instructional staff members, helping the corps to which he has dedicated his life achieve incredible success.

In Farrell’s first years as program coordinator, he took the Phantom Regiment everyone had come to know and expect and transformed it with a new and sophisticated style.

“From the intensity of ‘The Defiant Heart’ (1996) to the epic redux of ‘Spartacus’ (2008), Dan has put the audience first and foremost,” former Phantom Regiment brass arranger JD Shaw said. “His philosophy has always been one of putting the focus on entertainment and letting competitive success merely be a by-product of excellence.”

“Quite simply, Phantom Regiment and Dan Farrell have been synonymous for decades,” Phantom Regiment executive director Rick Valenzuela said. “The impact Phantom Regiment has had on the drum corps activity is because of Dan.”

Hall of Fame Induction Speech