The Wauwatosa East and Wauwatosa West high school marching bands have joined forces as they travel to New York City to take part in the renowned St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Monday.
The 264th New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade will take place along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan beginning at 10 a.m. Central Time with more than 100 members from the two bands performing along the route.
“I’m really excited. I’ve never even been anywhere in the Northeast before, so New York City is a really big deal for me,” said Tosa East junior Lindsay Beaman, a drum major in the marching band.
Beaman and her bandmates traveled by bus to Chicago Midway International Airport early Thursday morning to board two flights to LaGuardia Airport in New York City.
Tosa East band director Jennifer Lato said she reached out to Tosa West more than one year ago to gauge interest in partnering on an application to participate in one of the country’s larger, nationally televised parades.
This will be the third time that the Tosa East marching band will take part in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City (the last time was in 2012).
“But this will be our first-ever combined performance,” said Lato, who has directed bands at Tosa East since 2011. “It’s really special to me because I’m a Tosa West alum and I work at Tosa East, so I get to bring together the place that started my love for music with the place where I’m currently living out all my musical passions.”
The discussions about combining the bands for major trip and parade performance began with conversations between Lato and former Tosa West band director Alex Hunt and continued with Hunt’s successor, Mark Wampfler, who served as an assistant for four years.
“This is a unique opportunity to come together as a district and marching in a parade like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Wampfler said. “And where better to go with a band than New York City, because there’s so much culture, music and other things.”
Classes, activities and events at Tosa East and Tosa West “generally feel so split,” he said.
“It’s not like there is opposition between the schools but there are athletic rivalries for sure,” Wampfler said. “So, it is cool any time we get to come together as a full district for some kind of activity like this.”
Wampfler took part in a similar opportunity as a high school student when he traveled to New York City.
“We didn’t do a parade but we had a couple performance opportunities,” he said. “But doing this now as a teacher, I think I have a much greater appreciation for some of the things we are going to get to see.”
Band members are scheduled to visit the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, other museums and Chinatown, while also seeing two Broadway shows and going on a dinner cruise.
“We’ve really loaded in a lot of culture, music, food and history on this trip,” Wampfler said. “I’m excited for the kids to get to see New York.”
Beaman said she has been relishing her new leadership role as a drum major with the Tosa East band. She’s looking forward to traveling to New York City and marching in the parade with her friends and bandmates from Tosa East as well as forging new friendships with band members from Tosa West.
“I’ve been really excited to work all the new kids,” Beaman said. “It’s a lot of kids that I know and some I’ve never even met before. It’s a lot of new faces and personalities.”
Mica Hoverman, a senior at Tosa East who is in his second year as a drum major, will also be making his first trip into the heart of New York City.
“We’ve driven by it before but it will be nice to see it up close and personal,” he said.
He’s also eager to march and perform with Tosa West students.
“It’s really exciting,” he said. “It’ll be really nice to be able to be in a performance tour with them and really get to know them better.”
