Hart Factbook 2009

UGA Redcoat Band home from China

Sarah Shelnutt knew something special was happening. The freshman from Watkinsville had stood in formation with the University of Georgia Redcoat Band many times before, but this time she and her trumpet were in a sold-out soccer stadium in Chengdu, China - a city of more than 5 million people located more than 1,000 miles southwest of Beijing - as part of the first American college band ever to give a marching performance in a Chinese stadium.

The Redcoats' presence there was astonishing enough, but as Sarah and her 300 colleagues played the theme from “Superman,” more than 10,000 Chinese held their hands aloft and waved their arms in time to the music - the Krypton wave - just as Georgia fans do at the start of a fourth quarter of football.

As the 90-minute show ended, thrilled audience members, treating the band as rock stars, followed as the Redcoats marched a victory lap around the stadium's track.

Once outside, the crowd mobbed the UGA students for autographs and photographs. The “cultural exchange” that the Redcoats came 10,000 miles to accomplish suddenly morphed from concept to reality.

“It was astounding,” Shelnutt said. “I let a little girl named Angel hold my trumpet for a picture. Hearing her gasp as I placed it in her hands is a memory I will always cherish. I let several teenagers try on my shako (uniform hat). An old man walked up to me and told me I was his hero, and slid a black tiger's eye bracelet on my arm. I was so shocked and honored that I almost forgot to thank him!”

“I felt like a superstar,” said Jessi Fawley, freshman clarinetist from Peachtree City. The support and enthusiasm of the Chinese people, especially the youth, after our performances was incredible.”

“That was the coolest thing I've ever done in my life,” said Redcoat drum major Ty Carnes, a senior from Acworth, who was mobbed for photos after a concert in Kunming.

Indeed, the Redcoats' tour of China, May 14-29, was a unique form of Sino-American diplomacy, breaking new ground in many respects.

Dubbed by Chinese promoters as “the largest performing arts act ever to tour China,” the 298 students and 15 band and university staff members traveled more than 5,000 miles in-country, criss-crossing China from Beijing in the northeast to Kunming near the Vietnam border, then up to Chengdu in the central Sichuan Province, to Xiamen on the southeast coast, and finally north to Nanjing and Shanghai.

They visited some of the largest cities in the world - Shanghai is twice the size of New York City - and saw more of China than all but the most experienced American business people and diplomats.

“It was a thrill for our students to realize that we drew crowds of 10,000, and 18 ,000, and finally 30,000 in paid admission,” said Redcoat Band Director David Romines. “The crowds were there to see the Redcoats.”

A chance meeting at a music educators' conference between Romines and Dr. Song Yang of the U.S.-China Cultural and Educational Foundation led to the historic trip.

Song knew the Redcoats had earned the prestigious Sudler Trophy as one of America's top marching bands, and his organization ultimately raised some $1.2 million to support the trip with transportation, meals and housing within China. Each Redcoat traveler paid an additional $1,600, which covered round-trip airfare from Atlanta to China.

More than half the Redcoats had traveled abroad before, but for others, the take-off from Atlanta was their first plane flight.

All were veteran travelers before trip's end, as each Redcoat experienced at least 10 airplane take-offs and landings.

Each leg of the trip spread Redcoats across multiple airplane flights as the entourage moved from one city to the next. Total miles traveled per person: approximately 25,000.

The daunting logistics of repeatedly distributing airline tickets, checking baggage, showing passports and assigning hotel keys for a party of 313 was nearly routine by the end of the second week

“Going to Jacksonville for two nights will never again seem quite the challenge it once did,” said associate band director Tom Keck.

The trip was an official, albeit non-traditional, UGA study abroad program. The university already is one of the nation's leaders in study abroad - 21 percent of undergraduates have a residential study abroad experience before they graduate - and the Redcoats are believed to be the largest group ever sent abroad by UGA for any purpose.

“I don't know if this is just the caliber of kids now at UGA or if it is just the Redcoats, but as parents, we were proud to be a part of it,” said Glenn Carter, a Hinesville physician and band parent who, with his wife, Becky, joined the staff and chaperones of the trip. “The kids had opportunities to get frustrated with buses and airports and hotels and food, but carried through in good spirits.”

Surely a highlight of the trip for any Redcoat was the visit to the Panda Research Center at Chengdu and climbing the Great Wall of China outside Beijing.

For Ty Ridgway, a properties crew member from Royston who graduated just before the trip began, it was doubly unforgettable. Not only did he experience his first airplane flight, upon climbing atop the Great Wall, Ridgway dropped to one knee, pulled out a ring and proposed to Redcoat flagline member Heather Thayer. The Marietta resident, also a new graduate, said yes.

The very appearance of the young Americans was new to many Chinese. In the interior cities it became apparent that some locals were seeing in person for the first time people with blonde or red hair, with black skin, or more than 6 -feet tall. The figures of American movies suddenly came to life for the Chinese, who stared and pointed, or crowded around excitedly to touch and take pictures.

The tour itself was big news. In Chengdu, Kunming and Shanghai, local television broadcast the nearly two-hour performances live and without interruption, using sophisticated 10-camera shoots rivaling any Georgia Bulldog football broadcast.

In each city, the Redcoats found themselves on the front pages of the local newspapers.

As was the case throughout the tour, closing night in Shanghai saw the Chinese audience at first curious about how to approach a marching band performance.

With encouragement from the Redcoat announcers - this writer announcing in English and Dr. Song translating into Chinese - the crowd warmed to cheer “Georgia” on one side of the stadium and “Bulldogs” on the other, though there's no specific Chinese word for “bulldog.”

They politely appreciated a show of themes from American motion pictures, most readily identifying with Patton - the American general is a hero of some renown in China.

The auxiliaries' dance routine to a medley of Michael Jackson tunes brought hearty applause, and the crowd clearly was knowledgeable of classical music - enthusiastically clapping along with Bizet's “Carmen.”

But the biggest reaction came when the band played a set of Chinese folk songs and formed a map of China, which transformed into a map of the United States as the Redcoats broke into “Stars and Stripes Forever.”