Greendale High School’s marching band will get a chance to fly across the pond and participate in the London Parade and Festival.
The band was invited to take part in the Jan. 1, 2028 edition of the parade, according to a June 16 news release from the Greendale School District.
The parade began in 1987 with just 2,000 performers and has become an event that features participants from the around the globe and has a reach of 500 million viewers each year, according to both the parade’s website and the news release.
The 2028 London Parade and Festival will be the first time the band will perform internationally. It previously has performed twice in the 2016 and 2023 editions of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City and the 2020 and 2026 editions of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, the news release said.
“It’s always an honor to be selected for global events like this. It’s just an honor to represent not only Greendale as a relatively small village, but the Milwaukee area … and then just the state of Wisconsin in general – it’s cool to show people that might not be familiar with what we do in the Upper Midwest that there’s good music and good marching band things happening here,” said Greendale High School band director Tom Reifenberg in a separate phone interview June 17.
Reifenberg said the reveal of the news to the students took place during a normal rehearsal night June 9 and that they had no clue it was happening. The Greendale School Board approved the trip at its June 15 meeting.
“The looks on their faces when they started to figure it out and then they saw the date of 2028 and they saw the London, the British flag and all that, it was pretty special,” he said.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee-area high school to perform at 2028 London Parade and Festival
Reporting by Alec Johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Alec Johnson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
