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Lesbian and Gay Band Association ChoosesInspiring Music for Inaugural Parade
The Lesbian and Gay Band Association (LGBA), a
musical organization comprising marching and concert bands from across
the United States and around the world, is proud to announce the five
musical selections that it will perform during the parade for
President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009. LGBA
is the first lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender group in history
to be invited to march in a Presidential Inaugural Parade.
musical organization comprising marching and concert bands from across
the United States and around the world, is proud to announce the five
musical selections that it will perform during the parade for
President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009. LGBA
is the first lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender group in history
to be invited to march in a Presidential Inaugural Parade.
According to LGBA Artistic Director Rice Majors of San Francisco, “At
the reviewing stand, for an audience that will include President Barack
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the LGBA band will perform ‘The
Washington Post,’ the beloved 1889 march by John Philip Sousa and an
essential piece in marching band literature. Sousa, a Washington, D.C.,
native and an American composer of patriotic music and marches, was
nicknamed the March King. ‘The Washington Post,’ written in honor of
the award-winning newspaper of the same name, is a familiar tune that
will delight the inauguration day parade-goers and demonstrate the LGBA
band’s pride in its American heritage and in this cherished musical
tradition.”
For the 25-minute, 1.6-mile parade, Majors says that the LGBA band will
perform a total of five pieces, each of which speaks to a different
aspect of Americans’ hope and pride during this historic inauguration.
“Ode to Joy,” by Ludwig van Beethoven, is a beloved hymn to fellowship
among people and echoes the Obama campaign idea that there is one
America that includes us all. The band will play a spirited marching
arrangement of this 1824 composition by Beethoven that is part of the
beloved Ninth Symphony.
“Hold On, I’m Comin’,” a 1960s R&B hit on the Atlantic Records
label, evokes the aspirations of the American people for the future and
for the Obama presidency. The marching arrangement that the LGBA band
will play has an infectious driving rhythm that is sure to electrify
the crowds along the parade route.
“Brand New Day,” from the hit musical “The Wiz” (the Broadway
re-telling of “The Wizard of Oz”), heralds the dawn of a new era. As
the lyrics of the song say, “Everybody look up, and feel the hope that
we've been waiting for” and “show the world that we’ve got liberty.”
Finally, “Manhattan Beach,” another Sousa march, will continue the
theme of our American musical heritage on parade. This well-loved piece
was written in 1893 to honor the Brooklyn beachfront neighborhood of
the same name where the March King and his band once gave summer
concerts.
The 177-piece LGBA band will be comprised of members of its bands,
orchestras, and cheer squads from 26 states. They will join groups from
across the country as well as from the Armed Forces in the historic
parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, which follows President-elect Barack
Obama's swearing-in ceremony on the steps of the Capitol. The 12-person
LGBA color guard will perform separate flag routines for each of the
five pieces of music.
The LGBA concert band performed in 1993 at the inaugural celebrations
for President Bill Clinton, becoming the first lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender group to perform at an inauguration, and receiving a
“thumbs-up” gesture from the President as they played "America the
Beautiful." The LGBA band also performed at President Clinton’s second
inauguration in 1997. While those performances were history-making in
their own right, Majors says that “LGBA’s performance in the 2009
Inaugural Parade will take the organization’s mission of ‘Music,
Visibility, and Pride’ to new heights.”
The Lesbian and Gay Band Association, founded in Chicago in 1982 by 7
member bands, has grown to 34 member organizations in the United
States, Canada, and Australia.