It’s New Year’s Day, and JMU’s Marching Royal Dukes (MRDs) proceed through St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City playing powerful pieces like “Salvation is Created” and later, “Nessun Dorma.” With 270 marching band members and alumni performing, sound bounces off the walls of the square and the group far exceeds any others participating in the Rome New Year’s Day Parade — the only parade with the Pope’s blessing — in both number and volume.
Some MRDs, like senior music education major and tuba player Sara Drozdowski, said they knew before traveling that a trip to Italy and performing with the band for the Pope would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. However, the timing of the band’s 50th anniversary celebration and the death of former Pope Benedict XVI on Dec. 31, 2022, resulted in a grander culmination of events and equally impactful experiences.
Drozdowski said that while the group was moving through Italy and exploring different cities — traveling from Florence to Siena and Tivoli before ending in Rome — she didn’t always have the chance to realize, “Wow, I’m in Italy right now with the MRDs,” as she put it.
“The moment where it sank in for me was at the end of [the piece] ‘Nessun Dorma’ when we hit the big climax and my best friend … one of the drum majors, was conducting,” Drozdowski said. “I was watching him and in front of me was St. Peter’s [Basilica] in the Vatican, and that’s when it sank in like, ‘Wow, the magnitude of what we’re doing right now is huge.’”
After news broke of Pope Benedict XVI’s death, Drozdowski said, there was a lot of uncertainty within the group about whether the parade would be canceled, but the event went on and the MRDs still performed. The main difference was a shifted program that included more emotional songs that honored the Pope and less of the more lively tunes they’d prepared, Drozdowski added.
“I think it is fitting that the MRD’s somehow found themselves part of a historical world-moment, and turned it into something special, more than we all imagined,” Nieves Villaseñor, JMU’s assistant director of bands, said in an email. “The MRD’s are honored to have been a part of such a special moment for the people of the Vatican, Italy, and the world.” [sic]
‘Lifelong memories’
The marching band, known as “Virginia’s Finest,” has been invited to many other notable events, Villaseñor said, including a previous New Year’s trip to the Vatican in 2015 and multiple appearances in the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Organized by the director of the MRDs, Scott Rikkers, and with the help of a travel agency, the band’s return to Italy has been years in the making.
“I think with the success of the last trek, it felt right to go back again, especially after several years of traveling hiatus due to the pandemic,” Villaseñor wrote. “Whether its cross-European tours, performing in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade multiple times, or traveling with our talented JMU Dukes football team, these kinds of opportunities happen because our students’ hard work and dedication is evident in their performances.” [sic]
St. Peter’s Square is quite a different venue from JMU’s Bridgeforth Stadium, Carlos Yanez, a senior health sciences major and a colorguard captain in the band, said. This new, smaller atmosphere posed some challenges for the section but also allowed the MRDs to talk with 100,000 or more audience members on the streets who had “never seen anything quite like [the band] before” and watch their faces throughout the performance.
“We typically have a lot of space on the field to move around and do our tosses … so it’s a little different when you’re marching down the street,” Yanez said. “We were so close to hitting people [at] every turn. It was so difficult, but it was still truly amazing just to be able to do that going down the Vatican.”
While the New Year’s Day performance was the main event of the trip, the MRDs recalled several other memorable moments from the journey. Yanez said he and his friends tried ravioli that they “cannot stop talking about” and visited Alfredo alla Scrofa, where fettuccine alfredo was first created.
For Kevin Rau, a fourth-year media arts and design major and the MRD drumline’s bass section leader, taking a day to explore his surroundings with friends was a highlight.
“There were days that my friends and I walked around, found a fountain … got gelato on the way, found a nice restaurant down a random alley [and] struggled to order my food because of the language barrier,” Rau said. “It’s nice to … do your own thing and figure things out on your own, and that’s just a lot of fun to do in a foreign country with your friends.”
Drozdowski said she enjoyed getting to perform next to MRD alumni, who ranged in age from JMU’s most recent graduates to those who attended the university in the 1980s and ’90s. Villaseñor echoed this sentiment and raised the idea of current MRDs reuniting in the same fashion years later.
“I love how the MRD family is a forever family,” Villaseñor said in an email. “It was such an inspiring sight to see the alumni band together seem still so tight-knit by the threads woven by being in the MRD’s together. I pointed this out to the students… to look around them and remember these moments spent with everyone… that is the most cherished part, and keeps the legacy of the MRD’s burning bright and long.” [sic]
As seniors, Yanez and Drozdowski said performing alongside their peers for the last time during a monumental occasion abroad will be something they remember forever.
“I think just the biggest takeaway is just getting to spend such an amazing experience with all of my best friends and making new friends on the trip,” Drozdowski said. “Just being around different people, and experiencing a new culture [was] something so surreal with all of the people who I have gone through the MRDs with for four years, or just met. So, lots of lifelong memories made.”
Avery Goodstine contributed to this report.
