Park City Marching Band Invited To Perform In Normandy For D-Day
Jun 6, 2019, 8:55 AM | Updated: 12:38 pm
NORMANDY, France – The Park City High School Marching Band is one of the few in United States invited to take part in commemorations of the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
Before the community sendoff, students reflected on this chance of a lifetime to learn from history and represent the future.
“To be part of probably the last grand festival that is going to have them with actual survivors,” said PCHS Band Director Chris Taylor, “it is amazing to get to do that.”
“We’re allowed to make the choices we do today, and we’re allowed to have the freedoms we can today because of things that have happened in the past,” said PCHS Assistant Band Director Bret Hughes, “such as D-Day.”
Students at Park City High School will be music ambassadors when they represent Utah in France. For many of these students, it’s not lost on them that those who were fighting on the beaches of Normandy weren’t much older than they are now. They feel the responsibility.
“I’m just trying to envision how those men and women out there were on the beaches, sacrificing everything they had, no matter what,” said clarinet player Jamie Rosales.
Some also represent relatives who fought in WWII. Drummer Charlie Mauldine had a great uncle who served.
“When he was going onto the beach, he got hit by shrapnel,” Maulding said. “It hit him in the head. He was wearing a helmet. He survived that and lived to tell the tale.”
They’ll be part of history and the future, and along the way they hope to impress an international audience.
