Hopatcong Marching Band Makes Comeback

Hopatcong's marching band is back in full swing this year with 55 students from grades seven through 12 participating. The band had three music rehearsals this summer and is on the fields all week doing drills in preparation for its first public performance on Friday. This year they have chosen a pirate theme. 

consists of three elements: wind instruments, percussion and color guard. Percussion is divided into a marching section with snare drum, bass drum and quads, and a pit section with xylophone, traps, and vibraphone. The color guard interprets the music, giving it color and interest through spinning flags, rifles and sabers.  

Marching Band Director Matthew Testa said band camp is long and intensive, especially during the last week of summer when they focus on the marching element. Like football, this involves formations and patterns on the field. He said the students are well-focused this time of year.

"It runs 12 hours or so a day for the whole week," Testa said. "It’s a great situation because we have their full attention. They’re not running off to soccer practice," he said. "Because they’re so focused on the one activity, and because we see them pretty much every hour that they’re awake, they end up being the most productive that we see them throughout the year." 

Testa's voice rang out from a wireless mic at the top of the bleachers to the students on the field. 

"It's about knowing where you start, knowing where you end, and knowing how to get from point A to point B," he echoed. "The idea is that we’re spreading a band across 30, 40 yards on a field, so by counting together, we’re going to keep the music and the band all on the same foot at the same time. That’s part of the trick of marching band." 

Testa said marching bands are starting to make a resurgence. Interest and talent in Hopatcong has soared recently to the point where seventh graders are now involved in the program

"The band has grown by almost double every year I’ve run it," Testa said. "We started with 12 three years ago, and now we’ve got 55 or so. We had a very talented sixth grade, so I wanted to get them involved to increase the numbers. Numbers draw more funding."  

Hopatcong residents Thomas Dougherty and his wife, Lisa Cascelli, have two children in marching band—Brady, a freshman in his third year of band, and Teagan, an eighth grader in her second year of color guard. The also have an older son who participated before he graduated. 

Cascelli feels the marching band is as important as school sports, and the only option for nonathletes. She noted that the color guard has 10 or 11 girls participating this year, up from three in 2010.

"Most of the kids that do band, that’s what they do," Cascelli said. "A lot of them do not play sports. You take away band and they have nothing. Whereas kids that play sports, if you take away one sport, they’ll usually go to another sport because they like sports. They’re athletic. 

"I know last year we were the second largest varsity sport in the school. I’m sure football is still ahead of us, but we’re getting there. I’m very proud." 

Cascelli said she is very impressed with how far the program has come, considering it was dropped three years ago as a result of budget cuts. 

"Because of budget cuts, the school would no longer fund it, so a bunch of us parents decided that this was very important to us, and very important to our kids," Cascelli said. "We formed the and we fought, and we promised the school that we would keep it going and that they would be impressed with what they ended up with."

Dougherty, the association's president, came up with the motto, “Our kids are passionate about music. We are passionate about our kids." 

To help get the marching band back on track, Testa volunteered as director for one year, in addition to his job teaching fourth and fifth grades. His wife, Allison, an elementary band director in Wayne, volunteered her services as drill tech. The band played home games and didn't travel. The parent organization's role was to supplement costs. 

The board brought back partial funding the second year to cover a director stipend, an allowance to hire assistants for color guard and percussion, and busing. 

"It was great," Cascelli said. "Our organization was able to buy new uniforms for the whole band and the color guard. They hadn’t had new uniforms since I graduated high school here about 25 years ago." 

The band camp still relies on volunteers. Testa's wife is always there during the summer. To improve efficiency, Testa set up a "rookie day" to train newcomers before bringing the whole band together, with senior band members helping. 

"With the large amount of kids and the limited time of band camp," Testa said, "we’re not making camp longer and we don’t have any extra staff, so we’re trying to get the rookies on board with how things work before camp starts.

"This is the first rookie day that we’ve ever done. It’s been great. Upper classmen are volunteering to come out and help get them ready. It’s a good experience. The best are teaching the new ones how to be great at it."

Camp runs through this week. The band's first public performance is Friday at 1:30 p.m. at the stadium, open to everyone. 

"It’s our first time performing everything that we'll learn all week," Testa said.

Testa wants to grow the program and says the parent organization needs to focus on the fundraising and advocacy. 

"We've been working very hard. I hope awareness will create more advocacy and more funding so we do it better."