Junior Emily Griffis is involved in nearly every music ensemble at Conant High School, from playing her flute and piccolo in the school’s top band, as well as in the orchestra wind ensemble. She also plays piano with the jazz ensemble, and even teaches piano to beginners on the side.
Emily Griffis is one of two drum majors for Conant’s marching band.
Now, she adds another feather to her cap: the Macy’s Great American Marching Band, which will be featured prominently in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and on the NBC telecast.
It is made up of 185 talented students from across the country, who submitted audition tapes last spring and were selected by a panel of music educators and marching band directors.
The fact that Emily made it came as no surprise to her band director, Leann Roder-Manson, who describes Emily as a driven and motivated student.
“Emily works very hard to meet the demands of a group like this,” Roder-Manson says. “She is a very strong marcher and an excellent musician. She attended the Smith Wallbridge drum major camp last summer and really fine-tuned her marching skills there. I think she’s extremely outgoing, capable and hardworking and it shows in everything she does.”
Performing with the band is more than marching down Central Park West. Her adventure starts Saturday when she flies to New York. After getting settled on that first day and getting fitted for her uniform, she will have her first rehearsal with the band on Sunday night — after a day of sightseeing.
Rehearsals continue Monday through Wednesday, with side trips to Times Square and the American Dream Mall, as well as a student leadership session with a guest speaker.
On Thanksgiving Day, their big day starts early. Band members need to report to the hotel lobby in uniform by 3 a.m., before they depart for the parade route where they will rehearse for NBC cameras at 4:30 a.m. They get a brief respite for breakfast at Hard Rock Cafe, before heading to the parade’s staging area in Uptown New York and unload.
The parade steps off promptly at 9 a.m. for the annual Thanksgiving Day tradition. Each year, it draws more than 3.5 million people in New York to line the parade route and more than 50 million viewers at home. This year, the band will play a popular show tune as well as the hit single, Espresso, by Sabrina Carpenter. Band members will perform one more time, in front of Macy’s in Herald Square before their magical day ends.
Emily as an underclassman playing her piccolo
As exciting as the adventure is for Emily, she is not the first student from District 211 to be selected for the Macy’s Great American Marching Band. Ten years ago, Maddy Demaret marched with the band, as well as Ananya Maddulapalli in 2022.
Roder-Manson says their selection reflects the quality of the band program in the district — and the drive of these students.
“I think our students are well-prepared as musicians to participate in something like this,” she says. “If they are intrinsically motivated to practice hard and put in the work for it, there are few limits to what they can accomplish.”
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