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Lowellville student preps to march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade
By sarah lehr
LOWELLVILLE
It takes a special kind of person to play the tuba, according to Bob Antonucci, the music director at Lowellville Local Schools.
“It’s almost like the sorting hat in Harry Potter,” Antonucci said. “It chooses you.”
Dominick Commisso, a senior at Lowellville High School, is that kind of person. The 18-year-old tuba player will demonstrate his chops this Thanksgiving Day when he performs with the Macy’s Great American Marching Band.
Commisso, a Coitsville resident, was one of about 250 high-school students across the nation and eight students from Ohio chosen to march in the prestigious ensemble.
The audition process was extensive – Commisso posted audition footage to YouTube and submitted 13 letters of recommendation – but Antonucci said Commisso stayed on top of it.
“I never had to nag him about anything,” Antonucci said. “Dominick’s a very directed student.”
On Thanksgiving Day, Commisso will get up bright and early to march 21/2 miles from 77th Street and Central Park West to Herald Square at 34th Street, all while lugging his instrument. He’ll be playing the sousaphone, a kind of modified tuba. John Philip Sousa purportedly helped develop the sousaphone more than a century ago as an instrument that would be light enough to march with, while still producing a rich, bass sound.
“It’s basically this long tube that wraps around you,” Antonucci said of the sousaphone. “It looks like something Dr. Seuss would have invented.”
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade attracts 3 million live spectators and a television audience of some 25 million. Commisso acknowledged that these numbers make him nervous, but said he’s ultimately driven by a commitment to the music.
“Once I start performing, I try not to think about the audience as much,” he said. “I get into a kind of flow, and the music and the marching comes together.”
Commisso will have about a month to learn the parade music. There will be a few rehearsals, as well, once Commisso arrives in New York. Since it’s difficult to shut down the heart of the Big Apple for extended periods of time, the students may have to rehearse in the middle of the night before Thanksgiving Day. And, the show will go on no matter rain, snow, sleet or hail. Commisso, a marching band veteran, is not daunted by this.
“Band kids are tough,” Antonucci said. “They start the season in 90-degree weather and then later on they’re at football games when it’s 30 degrees and snowing.”
Commisso is a music kid, through and through. He sings and plays tuba for Christ Our Savior Parish and, among other ensembles, is involved with Lowellville’s concert, marching and pep bands, the All-Ohio State Fair Band and the Stambaugh Youth Concert Band. He was quick to thank Antonucci and Brandt Payne, the director of the Stambaugh Youth Concert Band, for their help with helping him realize his dream of marching in the parade.
Commisso has set up a Go Fund Me page, hoping to raise $2,500 to cover the $1,540 participation fee, as well as plane tickets, lodging for his mother and some money for sightseeing.