Cal Poly Marching band wins first place in San Francisco parade
The Cal Poly Mustang Band performs on a street in San Fransisco.
Photo by John Osumi.
Band won award for the third year in a row
–The Cal Poly Mustang Band took first place in the adult marching band category for the third consecutive year at the Southwest Chinese New Year Parade held Feb. 20 in San Francisco.
Nearly half of the band’s 210 musicians are engineering majors – including civil engineering major Sara Mason and mechanical engineering major Teyvon Brooks, both from Paso Robles. Both played in the percussion section.
The parade, named one of the top 10 parades in the world by the International Festivals and Events Association, celebrated the Year of the Monkey with floats, lion dancers and other festive entries.
“I think for the students, it’s impressive to perform along a parade route lined by 1.2 million people – a mass of humanity that spans so many generations and nationalities,” said Christopher Woodruff, associate director of bands. “There was also a live television broadcast, which I understand was shared on an international feed. As participants in this celebration of the lunar new year, the students got to see and, indeed, be a part of some amazingly colorful and vibrant traditions.”
This was the third year the band had been invited to perform at the event, which was started in the 1860s by San Francisco’s Chinese community to educate and share their culture with the greater community. The parade and festival have since grown into the largest celebration of Asian culture outside of Asia.
The magnitude of the event’s size and its cultural dimensions required a stepped-up commitment from the band on a number of fronts, said Woodruff.
In addition to the Cal Poly fight song, “Yea, Poly!” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” which are among the band’s standard repertoire on campus, there was a custom arrangement of “Over Mountains and Valleys,” which is the theme song from a popular Chinese-language martial arts drama.
“For each of these tunes, the choreography for our colorguard and feature twirlers, who are at the fore to ‘introduce’ the band, was designed to create the maximum visual impact on the audience,” said Woodruff.
The 1.5-mile parade route –with some band members carrying instruments, such as tubas and tenor drums, that weigh up to 50 pounds– required some dedicated physical training as well.
“The Mustang Band is widely recognized for its extraordinarily spirited marching performance, whether parading along the street or into the gym for basketball games,” said Woodruff. “But it’s one thing to do what they do for the short distance down to the stadium, and quite another to sustain that level of active marching or dancing for a fully 90 minutes!”
The Mustang March Band performs for nearly 50 occasion on campus each year, including athletic events and university functions
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