Morgan State marching band gears up to perform at Macy's parade
Herald Square is about to get a dose of the Magnificent Marching Machine. The Morgan State University band is heading to New York to showcase their talents at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Their excitement was hard to contain Tuesday morning as the marching band of over 100 members headed to the 93rd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
"I've always wanted to be in the Macy's Day parade and when I got in. My mind was blown," said trumpeter Arthur Crowner.
The experience has been intense for the past few weeks. The band has been practicing every day for three hours to get ready for the big show. They'll perform five songs, but they're bound by contract not to reveal which ones. However, they promise will be a hit.
The parade course is two and a half miles, so practice, which included plenty of physical endurance workouts, was crucial.
"What we are doing now is just trying to spend some time marching around the track so that we get used to just being in parade formation for that amount of time," said Melvin Miles, director of the Morgan State University Band.
Morgan State University is the first historically black university in Maryland to play at the parade and the fifth in the country. It's an honor that Miles, who has been a part of the group for 46 years, said they'll cherish for a lifetime.
"At the end of the day, all you have is your memory, and this is one of those things that you should hold on to always, and they will," Miles said.
The band will stay in a hotel for three days before waking up early to perform on Thanksgiving. The band has to be lined up to practice with all the other acts starting at 1 a.m. Thursday.
"I don't know if I'm going to get a lot of sleep, but it's not going to matter because we're going to have so much fun and we can sleep after," said alto saxophonist De’Aunjana’e Wise.
The Magnificent Marching Machine will be the first marching band to perform.
You can catch all the festive fun on WBAL-TV11. The 93rd annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade starts Thursday at 9 a.m and will re-air at 2 p.m.