Marching Pride
SLIPPERY ROCK — As professional bucket lists go, Jonathan Helmick's is pretty concise. In fact, the Slippery Rock University assistant professor of music and director of bands has only two items he's ever needed to check off.
And in a little less than two years, he'll have cut that list in half. Barring a phone call from the Vatican, Helmick has no issues leaving that list half done.
Following an invitation from Brendan Carr, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Helmick and SRU's Marching Pride will head across “the pond” to participate in the 2019 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Ireland's capital city.
“There are two international parades that everyone wants to be involved with; one is the Official Rome New Year's Parade that is blessed by the Pope and the other is in Dublin. Right now, we're one for two and that's something not many bands can say and we're good with that,” Helmick said.
The parade is part of Dublin's St. Patrick's Festival that launched in 1996 to “develop a major annual international festival around the national holiday over which the 'owners' of the festival, the Irish people, would stand proud.”
“As the one national holiday that is celebrated in more countries around the world than any other, St. Patrick's Day is the day when everyone wants to be Irish,” said Carr in a statement. “We set out to seize that opportunity, and completely transform the national and international perception of St. Patrick's Day in Dublin.”
While the inaugural festival was contained to just one day, March 17, 1996, it has since grown to a five-day affair of food and arts involving Ireland's finest street-theater companies with lavish pageantry and raucous performances, and marching bands from around the globe.
“Last year, our department chair (David Glover, associate professor of music) led me and a group of students on an overseas study abroad trip,” said Helmick. “We saw the London Symphony in England, and then we went over to Ireland to see the National Concert Hall and a few other locations. I had the opportunity to take in the parade from the grand stands and speak with Lord Mayor Carr, who encouraged us to apply to participate in the 2019 festival.”
Once back in Western Pennsylvania, and with the support of Dan Bauer, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Philip Way, interim president, Helmick began the process of compiling the Marching Pride's application packet that included a 12-page document covering details such as when the university was founded; when the band was founded; prior significant performances; if the band would be interested in additional performance during the week if selected to participate; links to YouTube performance videos and even the band's color palate.
“I think being green and white worked in our favor,” Helmick said with a smile.
The Marching Pride will participate in the parade's competition category, which recognizes groups in four areas: best overall band; sectional youth band; sectional adult band; and spirit of the parade.
“Figuring out exactly what the Marching Pride will be at that time is a process for sure,” said Helmick. “I'm going to need to figure out how many of our current students will still be with us at that time, then as we proceed into next spring and we have incoming freshman express interest, we have to figure out what the instrumentation is going to look like; for instance, do we have more trombones than trumpets or so on and how do we feature them accordingly. That's kind of the dark horse right now ... trying to figure out which sections will have more members and how to integrate that into the music we choose to play at the festival.”
Musical selections aside, there are other nightmare-inducing logistics looming for Helmick. Consider having to move nearly 200 people, their instruments and all that luggage from SRU to Dublin.
And then there's the associated costs of such a venture.
“We're working on fundraising right now,” Helmick said. “We can't really forecast what it's going to cost because it all depends on the ratio of the dollar to the euro, the price of gas, what happens to our economy in the coming months, etc.”
