Band to perform at NATO festival

Staff report

AUSTINTOWN

For more than 65 years, Norfolk, Va., has organized a salute to NATO’s role in maintaining peace and stability in the world with the Norfolk NATO Festival. Norfolk is NATO’s home in North America, and the weeklong festival held each April is the only festival in the world that honors the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its 29 member nations. The Austintown Fitch High School marching band, under the direction of Wesley O’Connor and assistant director Jeremy McClaine, has announced that the band program will take its distinctive military marching style to Norfolk for part of that celebration as they will perform in the 66th annual NATO Festival of Nations Parade that will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday.

The band began spring training at the beginning of the month in preparation for the parade. Approximately 150 band members and chaperones will depart from Austintown Fitch High School on Saturday for the parade. While staying in Virginia, the band members also will tour the battleship Wisconsin and attend the Virginia Art’s Virginia International Military Tattoo at Norfolk’s Scope Arena. The tattoo is one of the three largest military tattoos in the world. Along with international military units, bands and drill teams from the United States Navy, Army, Air Force and Marines will participate. French Air Force Gen. Andre Lanata, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, issued an invitation for everyone to join in the celebration.

On Sunday, the band members will enjoy a day at Busch Gardens Williamsburg before traveling home Monday. Todd Wessell of Bob Rogers Travel is coordinating the trip in conjunction with the Austintown Band Parents Club. During their four years at Austintown Fitch, the senior class band members will have participated in the Kentucky Derby Pegasus Parade, Disney World’s Main Street Character Parade, the National Cherry Blossom Parade in Washington, D.C., and the NATO Parade.

More information about the band and its performances can be found at www.afband.org. The band parents also plan on live-streaming the band’s parade performance on the Facebook page: Austintown Band Parents.