On Monday, April 10, our award-winning marching band made school history by performing at the White House after being invited by the White House social secretary.
The students first heard the news during band class on Tuesday, March 28. “Immediately I felt a mixture of confusion and excitement,” sophomore Kelsan Giamporcaro, who plays baritone trumpet, said. The students learned they would be performing for the egg roll celebration at the White House.
They didn’t have much time to celebrate because they needed to learn five new songs within the next three days. “I was planning on getting some sleep that week, and then I knew that I wasn’t going to get any,” Giamporcaro said.
The band practiced four hours each day and managed to learn the five songs, taking up seven pages of music. Some of their favorites were The Avengers Theme and “Grand Old Flag.” “I definitely enjoyed the drumline part,” Giamporcaro said about “Grand Old Flag.”
On the Monday after spring break, they arrived at the White House at around 10 in the morning. When they arrived they got searched by the Secret Service. “I personally wasn’t nervous. But there were a lot of other people who were,” Giamporcaro said.
At the event a few other marching bands were attending, “There were a few other university marching bands there, but we were the only high school marching band,” sophomore Michael Hogye said.
They were playing outside the entrance to the lawn of the White House with people who were waiting in line. “I expected we were going to be performing on the front lawn or something near the front lawn, but we weren’t, unfortunately,” Hogye, who plays the trumpet, said.
Overall the experience wasn’t as exciting as the band members had hoped, though. The weather was warm, and “a lot of it was very tiring,” Giamporcaro said. “We played the same stuff over and over again and I was kind of underwhelmed.”
Still, it is an experience that they will remember for years. “Maybe we weren’t playing on the front lawn. But we were at the White House. That’s pretty darn cool if you ask me,” Hogye said.
