Hello Everyone.

I'm a conductor of a community band that's around 90 members. I've been with the group 2 years (about to start my 3rd season with them) I'm the group's 6th conductor in the last 38 years.

Now, on the whole things are great! However, the one issue I have involves 2 members- one of which has been around since the beginning.

The founding director of the band happened to be a pretty decent arranger, and prior to being the conductor of this group, was conducting a youth group. (Of which many members then joined my group when they aged out of the youth band) This arranger/conductor has been dead 26 years. His arrangements while good are beyond dated. (They're mostly obscure jazz standards)

The group, has been playing almost exclusively his arrangements on parade and as a result the average age of the group has crept up to 55. I'm 31 and was hired to bring new life and music to the group. The band at large has expressed that they are enjoying the new material. All except 2 members which happen to have been both on the selection committee that hired me and both serve on organizations board of directors. And are quite vocal and insistent that we continue playing the old charts because 'they work' and 'the audience loves them' - both facts that aren't true. They also claim that new younger players aren't joining because "the band's too good" when in fact it's solely because of the repertoire (e.g.. one of the parade tunes is "Sheik of Araby" and another is "Baby Face" - both tunes are over 70 yrs old and not known to most people.

Most of the band has been begging me to play modern music. I've obliged but these two cause such a stir and chaos whenever I try new music I end up shelving it.

How best can I resolve this?! (And asking them to leave the band is out of the question. At least for now)