The tireless University of Maryland marching band, having just returned from a winning performance at the Citrus Bowl and, on the heels of back-to-back gigs at the Comcast Center, is busy again.
At the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center late Thursday night, 250 students loaded tools, tubas, trombones, work clothes, band uniforms and sleeping bags into five black Maryland school buses.
They were rolling last night and this morning through the Deep South, to New Orleans. Their mission: Help Habitat for Humanity build new homes for local musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
For the next week, through Jan. 12, the students will be volunteer construction workers in the city?s budding Musicians? Village. The project was conceived by musicians Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis to assist Crescent City musicians return to the birthplace of jazz.
The students? shifts as laborers and carpenters will begin each day at 7 a.m. But the band also will play at a waterfront celebration, give a concert in St. Bernard?s Parish and help Mayor Ray Nagin kick off the Mardi Gras season.
Piccolo player Jessica Moore?s family comes from Natchitoches, La., north of the city.
“My family settled there in the 1700s and my great-uncle still lives in one of the original plantation houses,” said Moore, a 2005 graduate of Columbia?s Long Reach High School. “We were lucky in that nothing was affected by Katrina.
“I?ve never been down there before, but I?ve talked to my dad and my granddad and I?m really excited. They say New Orleans and the French Quarter are amazing. To go down with the band, as a musician, and lend a hand is pretty special.”
Saxaphone player Andrew Anderson, a graduate of Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, has grandparents just outside New Orleans.
“They live in a suburb of New Orleans, not the inner city, but a small town named LaPlace surrounded by Lake Pontchartrain,” Anderson said. “Actually some of this lake is in their backyard. When Katrina hit they had to evacuate, but luckily they only lost a few shingles from the hurricane. There wasn?t any serious damage, thankfully.”
Band Director L. Richmond Sparks traveled to New Orleans this summer to rebuild homes with his sons. His descriptions and photographs of the still-devastated region sparked student interest in the trip earlier this school year.
The band passed hats at football games for donations and asked alumni and university supporters to help them raise the more than $50,000 they needed for the project.
See more photos of the University of Maryland marching band working in New Orleans on Chris Ammann’s photo blog.
