Portland’s most active and best-traveled all-adult marching band has found the perfect way to launch its 50th anniversary season — marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. On Jan. 20, the Get a Life Marching Band of Portland, Ore., will join approximately 100 other units from around the country in the Presidential Inaugural Parade in Washington, D.C.
Steve Tolopka, formerly of Glasgow and a tenor sax and clarinet player with the WKU Big Red Marching Band in his student days, is GAL’s Music Director. He still can’t quite believe the group’s good fortune.
“The Presidential Inaugural Committee received a record 1382 applications for the parade this year, so we are awestruck and deeply honored to be among the lucky few with an invitation to this historic event. But we knew our high-energy, brassy, funky rock and roll style would be different from anyone else applying to the parade. We may be a marching band, but that doesn’t mean we play Sousa!”
Click here for more of the band’s news release about the trip to D.C.
