Marty Gordon
NRVsports@mainstreetnewspapers.com
Adriauna Easter was attending a Virginia Tech football game with her grandmother when she was 13 years old. She looked out at the Marching Virginians’ performance at halftime and said, ‘one day I will be out there performing with them.’
She is now a senior at Virginia Tech and after participating with the marching band at Christiansburg High, has been a part of the Marching Virginians ever since. This year, she serves as a senior captain.
“I’ve known from the beginning I wanted to be a part of this,” Easter said.
Her major is science and public health, and she hopes to march for one more year as a graduate student.
This season she became a captain of the clarinet section of the Marching Virginians.
The group practices 1-2 hours five days a week not counting a six-to-seven-hour day on home football game day.
“It’s challenging and yes, hard, but I have always found it to be easy. It’s a privilege to be a part of it,” she said.
The Marching Virginians are one of the two collegiate marching bands at Virginia Tech (the other being the Highty Tighties, the regimental band of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets). Because the Marching Virginians draw from the general student body, they are considerably larger than the Highty Tighties and have about 330 members.
The group is commonly known as “the spirit of Tech” and was established in 1974.
Despite offering no scholarships to band members, The Marching Virginians consist of students from every college and virtually every major within the university. This includes several other local high school graduates.
The Marching Virginians have performed at the Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, Independence Bowl, Sugar Bowl and Gator Bowl.
Known as “The Spirit of Tech” and established in 1974, the band performs at Virginia Tech football games, fundraisers, and charity events.
One of the facts Easter said people don’t realize is that the band does a new show for every home game.
She admitted to being overwhelmed at first.
“It’s important to be able to march and have endurances to play your instrument for the entire show,” she said.
“The first time, my hands were trembling, and I was scared to death. Not anymore.”
All of that has gone away, and just like the football team, Easter said the group feeds off the crowd.
“It’s just unbelievable to perform at Lane Stadium and at other places in front of a large crowd.”
Easter has now been involved with a marching band for over 10 years and would love to stay involved after graduation.
The Marching Virginians also hold their own yearly charity event, Hokies for the Hungry (set for this weekend’s game), during which canned food is collected by band members prior to a Virginia Tech home football game to benefit the Montgomery County Christmas Store.
Other interesting facts about the Marching Virginians:
The Marching Virginians march with 13 different instruments: piccolos, clarinets, alto and tenor saxes, trumpets, mellophones, trombones, baritones, sousaphones, and 4 types of percussion instruments. They also feature a flag corps, twirlers and two drum majors.
The MVs will march over 65,000 miles in any season, the equivalent of three times around the world.
