Photo: Naomi Stillitano | The theme for this year’s Rose Parade, presented on ABC, was “Celebrating a World of Music: The Universal Language.” Here’s some notes we made about the entrants in the parade: The Tournament of Roses Queen, Naomi Stillitano (17), an Arcadia High School senior, speaks three languages: English, Spanish, and Italian! She came here from Italy as a child. Now she’s the 2024 Rose Parade queen. She was crowned the 105th Rose Queen by Tournament of Roses President Alex Aghajanian in October.
The Grand Marshal for the parade was actress and singer Audra McDonald. Primarily known for her work on the Broadway stage, she has won six Tony Awards, more performance wins than any other actor, and is the only person to win in all four acting categories. In addition, she’s received numerous accolades including two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 2016 from President Barack Obama, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2017. [From Wikipedia]
The CalPoly float featured electric eels powering electric instruments like a keyboard whose keys actually moved and electric guitars plunking away! Great job of electronics, students!
The float from Ft. Lauderdale, Everyone Under the Sun, featured singer Alexander Star with an original anthem touting FLL and an “assortment” of dancers (FLL must have paid a small fortune to be shown in full as the network showed Alex singing the whole song!) Idea was to promote FLL since they say tourism has been down.
The marching band from Costa Rica has been able to attend the parade since 2020. Very colorful band uniforms and the “flag corp” wore convertible skirts so that they could perform a native dance (LOVE those swirling skirts – best “flags”). Never would have thought there would be marching bands in Costa Rica but, hey, why not???
The band from Hawaii was made up of award-winning musicians from all the Hawaiian islands which included three whose homes were lost in the Lahaina fire. The Rose Parade paid for those students to have new instruments so they could perform!
Fun float: State of Illinois with a Blues Brothers theme’d float! Singers doing BB’s songs with accompanying dancers!
Photo: Naomi Stillitano | from Facebook
January 4, 2024| Music Notes| Barb Dye