After winning fame and accolades performing live last night, July 2, on NBC's "America's Got Talent," the Immaculata High School Spartan Marching Band was back on campus, practicing.
The band was part of the opening act during the “countdown” section of the show at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. The special event marked the show's return to the East Coast from a week in Las Vegas. The individual talent performances followed.
But for some, the centerpiece of the show was the band's performance of “America,” a “parade tune we had ready to go,” said Frank Amato, Immaculata High School's associate band director.
“It was amazing,” Amato said on Tuesday. “It went really well. All the producers and directors were super nice to the kids.”
“It was really cool,” said Patrick Burke, who played snare drum during the performance.
Patrick, who graduated on June 2 and will attend Penn State in the fall, plans to audition for the college’s band in August.
Patrick and other 2012 graduates were part of the about 140-member band that became New Jersey state champs, then took second place in the U.S. Bands National Championship at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., earlier this year. It was the third time since 2006 that the band topped all others in the state. It placed first in the nationals in 2008.
Amato said that show's producers may have chosen the Immaculata band after viewing tapes of the winning 2011 performance and those that ran on Fox News in 2006.
“We all knew we were going to be on live TV,” Patrick said, “but it didn’t really hit that millions of people were going to be watching. Once the stars started to come, we knew it was legit.”
The band was thoroughly familiar with the music, he said. “We had it drilled into us.” The directors and producers put the band through its paces repeatedly once members arrived at NJPAC at about 10 a.m.
Patrick said they kept telling the band to “act like you’re having a party and have a good time.”
So it wasn’t until the directors told the band it was going live in 30 seconds and began the countdown that reality set in. “We got butterflies,” Patrick said.
A day after the show, for Amato and band members who hadn’t graduated this year, it was back to the musical grindstone.
The band practices three hours every Tuesday night throughout the summer, Amato said, to help new members become acclimated to the music and routines.
A marching band can't rest on its laurels and remain at the top. And this Tuesday night was no different than any other.
