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player ready...Three Naperville Central High School students have been chosen to perform with the Bands of America Honor Band at the New Year’s Day Rose Parade in Pasadena, California.
Matt Wilkinson, Alyssa Birzetis and Emma Brazell were selected from among hundreds of applicants eager to be part of the national band, which has performed as part of the iconic parade for the last five years.
“I’m pretty excited for it since it’s on a national stage,” Wilkinson, 17, said. “They’ve been having us work on it for a while. The vibe is pretty good right now.”
The Honor Band, part of the nonprofit Music For All organization, is a 300-piece ensemble with winds, percussion, flag and dance team members from across the country. It will be directed by Richard Saucedo, composer, conductor and retired director of the national champion Carmel (Indiana) High School marching band, a news release said.
“To be selected for this opportunity is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for students, and a testimony to their excellence and achievements,” Saucedo said in the release. “The Rose Parade is one of our country’s national pageantry treasures.”
Wilkinson and Brazell are juniors at Naperville Central and Birzetis is a senior. Birzetis and Brazell will perform with the color guard and Wilkinson with the trumpet section.
Wilkinson had been chosen for the 2021 Honor Band but the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association canceled the parade because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the cancellation, he was invited to participate this year without auditioning.
“It was annoying but I was used to it by then since, well, everything else was getting canceled,” said Wilkinson, who’s been playing trumpet for about six years.
“I kind of assumed it would happen this year,” he said.
They’ll also perform at several other events scheduled as part of the Tournament of Roses festivities, Wilkinson said.
Brazell, interviewed as part of a Music For All article, said she was “extremely excited to meet other members of this band as well as go to Disneyland and perform.”
“I applied to be in the Honor Band because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform in this parade and I want to be a part of an experience like this,” she said.