With President Barack Obama set to begin his second term during next week’s inauguration in Washington, the Grambling State University Tiger Marching Band expects to make history as the only college or university band to perform during the Obama inauguration parades of 2009 and 2013.
“We’d like to think that it was something unique in the (first) performance that’s allowing us to come back for a second time,” band director Larry Pannell says. “We’re just elated and pleased that we have an opportunity to go back.”
The only other school band traveling to Washington for a second Obama inaugural parade will be the one from the Punahou School, Obama’s high school alma mater in Honolulu, Hawaii.
“Obviously, that’s a very prestigious invitation for any organization. And for an institution like Grambling State University to get that extended to them for a second time, I think it’s extraordinary and well-deserved,” says Dr. Willie Hill, the director of the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an alumnus of the Grambling Tiger Marching Band.
Some 202 members of the 250-person marching band will be traveling this weekend by bus from Grambling, La. to Washington, D.C. to perform in the nation’s 57th inaugural parade. Grambling officials say they are seeking to raise at least $125,000 to cover the cost of the trip. Pannell says Grambling’s marching band also played at former President George W. Bush’s first inauguration.
In addition to its repertoire of patriotic marching tunes like John Phillip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever,” the renowned marching band expects to enliven the festivities with selections such as Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and Gap Band’s classic “Early in the Morning,” according to Pannell.
“I got a brilliant idea from watching (Obama) deal with the (fiscal) cliff and trying to make sure he got a budget that would work. I watched how he got up early and stayed up late trying to get something passed,” he says.
