By Brenna Eller
HILLSBORO, Kan. — Tabor College now officially has a fight song and it’s thanks to Associate Professor of Music and Director of Instrumental Music R. Christopher Teichler, D.M.
Teichler has been a part of the music faculty at Tabor College since 2019. He has nearly 50 compositions to his name, currently working on a choral piece for an ensemble in the Phoenix, Ariz., area, and a trumpet solo for a friend in Chicago.
“I’m always working on the next piece,” Teichler said.
Teichler got the idea in the spring of 2023, as he was finishing his fourth year at Tabor. He realized the pep band was playing a fight song written for a different school.
Utilizing his composition experience, he put his music skills to the test working in a new genre to write lyrics for the first time.
“It was more intimidating than challenging,” Teichler said. “I’ve always used pre-existing texts or lyrics for when I’ve written songs or choir pieces, so this was a first for me. Once I realized the fact that most school fight songs have similar imagery and phrases, I thought of ideas that would be unique to the Tabor Bluejays and cobbled together a text that sounded like fight song lyrics!”
In an article written on tabor.edu about the fight song, Teichler shares that he wanted the song to be Tabor’s more than his own.
When writing and composing “Fly to Victory”, he compiled a list of words and phrases for the lyrics and went through about ten versions before completing the final rendition. It took him about two months.
“Fly to Victory” was debuted before kickoff at the first football game, and public address announcer Nate Howard shared that Teichler and the Bluejay pep band were debuting the new school fight song.
Teichler described the feeling of composing music, how thoughts transfer from pencil on a paper, to piano, to computer, and how it’s extremely rewarding to hear the whole thing performed.
“I’ve gotten to the point now where I’m ok if something doesn’t work out as well as I intended, because I’ve learned something to carry forward to my next project,” he said. “However, I do have to say that hearing performers and listeners say that they enjoyed playing or were moved hearing is immensely rewarding and humbling as well.”
Since the debut, Teichler has received positive feedback from the community about “Fly to Victory.”
“The Tabor community has been very supportive and seem to like the idea of having our own fight song after using several different ones over the years that belong to other colleges or universities,” Teichler said.
Teichler found the overall experience fun and said it was something he had never done before or ever expected to do.
“But I’m glad I did it,” he added. “And I’d be honored for Tabor to still be using it long after my time here.”
