Five to toot horns with best in NYC for Macy’s parade
Posted on Thursday, November 22, 2007
MOUNTAIN HOME — Five Mountain Home High School students will spend Thanksgiving far from home, rising well before dawn and then pounding the pavement for miles.
The students are among 250 young musicians, flag line members and dancers selected to lead the 81 st annual Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. They’re part of the Macy’s Great American Marching Band, whose members represent high schools from the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
They’ll perform for an estimated 2. 5 million spectators who are expected to line the parade route, as well as millions of television viewers.
This is the second straight year these five students have performed in the Thanksgiving parade. The entire 125-member Mountain Home High School Marching Band was among ten school bands nationwide selected to march in the 2006 parade.
“It’s a completely different experience,” senior trumpeter Dakota Hardcastle said.
Last year, the Mountain Home band practiced for weeks before the parade.
This year, the five students had their music in time to memorize the songs but have had to learn the marching drills since arriving in New York earlier this week as Arkansas’ sole representatives to the band.
The 250 students “had never marched together, never played together, anything like that,” Sandy Kalbach, festival director with Music Festivals, a Reading, Pa. organization that hosts music competitions for high school students and was selected by Macy’s to put together the Great American Band.
“They’ve had a very rigorous practice schedule,” Kalbach said, adding that the students have impressed organizers with their talent and work ethic.
“I think the young people that we have are kind of the cream of the crop.”
The Macy’s Great American Band will be under the direction of Jon Woods, marching band director at Ohio State University, and Richard Good, marching band director at Auburn University.
Mountain Home High School Band Director Tom Chentnik, who is chaperoning the local students, nominated them for the Macy’s band.
Interviewed by telephone from their New Jersey hotel Tuesday, the students said they have made new friends and have been impressed with their new band mates.
Senior trombone player Kyle Markowski said he was particularly impressed by a fellow trombone player.
“He came from a private school and they have a really good band. But he’s never marched in his life,” Markowski said. “He’s learned everything. He has the proper horn carriage. He stays in step. It’s amazing that he can learn so fast, in two days of practice.”
The Mountain Home students also have learned to move a little differently, said senior Turner Pendergrass and junior Westin Sykes, both sousaphone players.
“This band is more of a show band kind of style, and we’re more of a traditional style,” Pendergrass said. Dustin Horton, a junior who plays the french horn, is the fifth student participating.
Band is a daily, 90-minute class at Mountain Home High School, supplemented by Thursday evening practices during marching season. Musicians in different sections also get together on their own time, and the flag line holds early-morning drills.
The Mountain Home band has earned the Sweepstakes Award from the Arkansas School Band and Orchestra Association for the last several years, receiving Division One ratings — the highest possible — in marching, concert and sight reading.
“Mountain Home is unique in that they have a band that is a large, quality program that on its own can get into Macy’s,” said Ken Martinson of Marching. com, an online resource for band directors, students, parents and fans.
He said the Great American Band allows musicians from smaller programs to participate in a world-class parade.
“That makes it doubly special for Mountain Home,” Martinson added.
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