As 2017 was beginning, everything came up roses for five Southland students.
The students from Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights marched and performed with an elite honor band Jan. 2 in the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, California.
Juniors Jacob Kopczyk, of Tinely Park, and Anthony Soria of Thornton, along with Sophomore Helder Perez-Viera of South Chicago Heights and Junior Ryan Lavin and his brother, Kyle, a freshman, both of Tinley Park, beat out thousands of applicants from all over the country to participate in the 300-piece Bands of America Honor Band, organized by the non-profit organization Music for All.
“It was honestly a once in a life time (experience),” said Soria, who has been playing trumpet for seven years.
Kopczyk also plays trumpet.
“It was something very different for me, I’ve never really traveled outside of the Midwest,” said Perez-Viera, who plays tuba. “Going to California was life-changing for me, (as was) meeting all the new people.”
The school’s band director, Greg Bimm, was one of 15 staff supervisors for the event. The students who comprised the band had largely never met or performed together before. They had two days to prepare for their first performance and four days to be ready to march in front of millions of people, Bimm said.
The selection process included a video performance, along with a letter of recommendation from the band director. Then other staff members — mostly band directors from high schools around the country — reviewed the applicants for a particular instrument assigned to them, Bimm said. For example, he reviewed and chose all the flutists.
Therefore, two different staff selected each of the Lavin brothers. The younger brother, Kyle Lavin, who plays tuba, was surprised he was selected as a freshman. He admires his older brother, Ryan, who plays the trombone.
“It was really cool because he’s such a great musician and I’m like ‘wow,’ it’s such a great feeling to be in the same band with him,” Kyle Lavin said.
“If there were other freshman there, there weren’t very many,” Bimm said. “None of the five of these guys are seniors, which means I get them for another year.”
“I’ve been with Kyle my whole life,” said Ryan, of his younger brother. “It was really cool, because we’ve matured as musicians together and know how each other plays.”
The five departed Chicago Dec. 28 without Bimm, who had left a few days before. Part of the experience, he said, was to have students travel on their own, interact with the other students, and learn from the other staff members.
“It was important for me that they had the right experience and part of the experience was that they could be with all the other staff members,” Bimm said. “They know me.”
“By being able to perform in the Rose Parade is amazing, but what’s really going to resonate with you is what you’ve been taught by the teaching staff there” Ryan Lavin said. “They want you to take what you’ve learned … they want you to take that back to your high school … so you can help make your high school a better place for music education.”
The parade itself was 5.5 miles long, which required stamina, Bimm said. There were crowds of people everywhere from the moment they arrived, he said.
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“I’ve never really been in a parade, so I didn’t know what to expect, so once we got the ball rolling, it was a lot of fun,” Soria said.
What they experienced, however, went well beyond their music education. They also toured Hollywood, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and Disneyland and spent New Year’s Day on Huntington Beach. Perez-Viera said that was the first time he had seen the ocean.
“I’ve never been to a real beach like that (other than Lake Michigan),” he said. “Seeing the salt water, it was really beautiful.”
Although Disneyland was a highlight of their trip, Soria had been to Disney World multiple times, and said that the In and Out Burger, California’s beloved fast food drive-through, was on the top of his list of favorite activities.
As student participants from around the nation got to know each other, they began to share experiences — and laughs. That included a regional accent between two players that turned into a running gag for the entire band. Early in the week, Kyle said he and the tuba section frequently used the word “spicy” to describe their playing. Then when another musician from South Carolina, with a thick Southern drawl asked why they were saying “spicy” all the time, the others laughed how it was pronounced. From there launched a running joke that spread through the rest of the 300 band members by the end of the trip.
Erin Gallagher is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.