Members of the Libertyville High School bands will be going to London to march in the New Year’s Day Parade and play at Cadogan Hall from Dec. 27 to Jan. 3, 2018.

The band will be playing in the London New Year’s Day Parade on Jan. 1, 2018, which will be broadcast internationally and watched by an expected 500,000 people along the parade route. They will be playing “National Emblem” and a holiday piece for the parade.

“[The parade] will be a really cool thing to experience. It is something that individually the students might not ever be able to do, so it is cool for us to be able to provide that experience that they can look back on and have pictures and memories and everything like that,” said Mr. Matt Karnstedt, one of the band directors going to London.

They will also be playing a sit-down concert at Cadogan Hall, where the London Philharmonic Orchestra plays. The band will be playing a mix of literature from American and English composers.

“It is always neat to see how other countries play and the way that they run the orchestra in London will be completely different than the way an orchestra is run here,” said sophomore percussion player Jennifer Short. “There will also be marching bands from all across the United States, so we can see what other people are doing across the U.S.”

When in London, there will also be time for the band to sightsee and do touristy things. They will be taking a Harry Potter tour of London and a historic tour of London. The band will be able to see Windsor, Cambridge, the Tower of London and the Royal Palace.

This trip is available to all of the students in band at the time of the trip regardless of grade, ability level or whether or not they are in marching band.

The band will also be doing a leadership clinic with a conductor from London. Big, general sessions with other groups from the United States are another thing planned for the band.

This will be the first overseas trip for the band since Mr. Adam Gohr and Mr. Karnstedt have been directing, but in the past, they have gone on smaller trips to Nashville and New York City.

“We have done these domestic trips, but we wanted to bring kids to another country to see the differences and culture there and…that is a really important thing to me to try to get out of the Libertyville bubble,” Mr. Karnstedt expressed.

The band has already begun practicing for their big day in London, but practicing will ramp up once marching band season slows down.

In total, there will be 83 students attending with 25 other chaperones or family members tagging along on the trip.