Sousaphone players Lucy Cassidy, Briar Garner and Roman Dixon sing "Celebrate good times" by Kool and the Gang during a recent rehearsal.
CAMDYN BRUCE
Greensboro News & Record
As practice drew to a close Dec. 17 for the Northwest Guilford High Marching Band, the drumline stayed longer to work on their cadence as they played a "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman" medley they've been working on for a special performance.
A performance for none other than Pope Francis, as the band will be traveling to Vatican City to perform in the Rome New Year's Day Parade, which takes place right before the pope delivers his New Year's Day message to the faithful.
Flutist Emmie LaDow, a 10th grader, said she's never been outside of the U.S. before and is eager to visit a different country.
"I'm super stoked," Ladow said. "This is all I've been talking about to everybody."
Tenth grader Ethan Stearns who plays trombone and baritone expressed similar excitement.
"I think it's awesome," Stearns said. "What kind of school goes to Rome, Italy, for a field trip?"
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For band director Brian McMath, the trip is about providing students like Ladow and Stearns an experience that's more than the music.
"It's more about world travel and what is it like to be in Italy. Do you tip, do you not tip? Do you know the language? How do you function with people from other cultures?" McMath said. "That's really what it's truly about. The music is the easy part. That's totally the easy part, it's everything else."
While the music might be the easy part, deciding which three songs the band would play was not.
The band will first perform an arrangement they call "The Parade Tune," which is a "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman" jazz medley.
The second song they'll play in the parade is "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond.
"I just wanted to make sure that we took a little bit of the Carolinas with us," McMath said. "Most everybody in the world knows "bom, bom, bom," even if you don't know all the words."
Finally, the band will conclude by playing "Celebration" by Eumir Deodato and Kool & The Gang.
"It's a universal song and to play "Celebration" on New Year's Day, why not?" McMath said. "You know, this is a jubilee year in the pilgrimage faith for Catholics ... and they're estimating 25 million people to be there. So, if I can get 25 million people from around the world to go 'bom, bom, bom,' and sing "Celebration," then I feel like I've done a great job."
Ninth grader Joushua Flynt who plays trombone and baritone said he hopes their performance will impress the pope.
"I mean, we don't want to go to a whole 'nother country and make a fool of ourselves," Flynt said.
Tenth grade fl ute player Bez Zander said she's confident the band's performance will go well.
"I'm pretty confident that we won't mess anything up and I think that we won't disappoint them if we do our best," Zander said.
McMath said the opportunity to play in the parade came because the band had built a reputation with Gateway Music Festivals & Tours, a leisure, travel and tourism company, after playing in their 80th Pearl Harbor Festival in Hawaii in 2021.
"Called them up and said, 'Hey I see you have a New Year's parade in Italy, we'd love to go,' and they said, 'we know the caliber of your band, you don't even have to apply, just come on,'" McMath said.
About half of the marching band will be going on the trip, which McMath said means about 85 kids.
McMath also said that the majority of the students have parents and grandparents coming with them, turning it into a family holiday trip.
"I only have about 10 students which are called 'orphans.' So, 10 students where they're families are not going," McMath said. "So those 10 orphans as we lovingly call them, they're being taken on by another family and they're chaperoned the entire time, and they got to choose which one to be adopted by for the week."
McMath also said that the band's trip is entirely "selffunded."
"Parents, kids, grandparents, they've all paid for themselves," McMath said. "We do have fundraising opportunities throughout the band, and some did take part in that and choose to fundraise through corporate sponsorships, selling corporate sponsorships, selling ads for our Fall Festival, things of that nature."
The students and accompanying family members, along with the band's instruments, will be leaving on three planes Dec. 27, and the group will be in Italy until Jan. 4. McMath said the group would spend some time exploring the country before and after their performance at Vatican City on New Year's Day.
"So, everybody meets in Florence, and we have a day or two in Florence. We come through Siena, the Tuscany Valley, then we're in Rome for three days," McMath said. Then we're actually going outside of Rome to d'Este Tivoli, which is another UNESCO site we'll go and visit."
For McMath, the trip is somewhat bittersweet as this is the last time he'll take a group traveling. He's retiring at the end of this school year after a 28-year career in teaching that started at Southwest Randolph High School in Asheboro.
He's been at Northwest Guilford for 21 years, and takes pride in the work he's put in to build up the band program.
"We have recruited many a student due to the band program, which I'm very proud of," McMath said.
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