Temple University’s marching band will perform at the 2025 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Temple University’s Diamond Marching Band already has its Thanksgiving plans for 2025 on lock.

The group announced Sunday that it was selected to play in the 2025 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, where they will march the iconic 2.5-mile route in New York City alongside celebrities on floats, Broadway performers, and larger-than-life balloons. The honor just so happens to coincide with the Diamond Band’s 100th anniversary, commemorating the work of Herbert E. McMahan, who created the group while a senior at Temple in 1925.

“I’ve heard some people say you have to apply for year and years. I was shocked that we were chosen so quickly,” said band director Matthew Brunner, who said it was the band’s first application since at least 2020. “To be invited really shows the hard work that the students put in.”

This is first time Temple University has been invited to perform in the parade, which has been televised nationally on NBC since 1953.

The honor is decades in the making for Brunner, who has dreamed about marching in the parade since he was a high school trumpet player in Dover, Ohio. There, Brunner said, a banner celebrating his school band’s 1972 Macy’s Parade performance presided over the practice room.

Brunner said he applied on behalf of the Diamond Band in February and was notified of the selection in April. Students were told about the opportunity at the end of a band camp showcase over the weekend, when a drum head branded with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade logo was ceremoniously pulled from a cardboard box.

Jeffrey Fountain — a trumpet section leader and senior in Temple’s five-year jazz education major — said that he “immediately got emotional” when he saw the drum head. Fountain will be a drum major next year, meaning he will help conduct the Thanksgiving Day Parade performance.

Playing in the Macy’s parade “is something you’re always thinking about as a member of a marching band,” said Fountain, who started playing trumpet as a fifth grader in Doylestown. “This will be a piece of history that I can put my name on forever. It’s going to be a story I tell my kids and grandkids.”

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Junior bass drum player Dillon Ferraro said her parents have already made plans to fly out from Pittsburgh, where she is from, to watch her perform next Thanksgiving. “It’s crazy that I get to go play the music I’ve been playing with my friends for the past two years in front of audience like that,” she said.

The selection process for marching bands is rigorous, according to Macy’s: Temple’s band was one of just nine invited to perform in next year’s parade, from a pool of more than 100 applicants across colleges and high schools. Bands must submit videos of their performances, as well as examples of community leadership, awards, and information on their members. Those selected receive $10,000 from the retailer.

The centerpiece of the Diamond Band’s application, Brunner said, was a “band-ified version of the Barbie movie soundtrack” that the group performed during a halftime show at Lincoln Financial Field. During the 10-minute performance, the group churned out spot-on renditions of “Pink” by Lizzo — the movie’s opener — as well as “Dance the Night Away” by Dua Lipa and the ultra-face-paced “Speed Drive” by Charli XCX.

Macy’s selection committee praised the performance’s creativity, Brunner said.

Robert Stoker, dean of Temple’s Boyer School of Music, said in a statement that it has been “tremendous to see the hard work and dedication of our students and faculty recognized in this way.”

Brunner said that the band would spend the next 15 months rehearsing for the performance in between football games. As for what the band will play, that’s up in the air.

Some students already have suggestions. Fountain wants to do a medley of the Diamond Band’s greatest hits (including the David Guetta and Nicki Minaj banger “Hey Mama”), while Ferraro is hoping for a set list that’s danceable.

“We want to something that is very us,” Brunner said. “And we want to find a way to bring some Philly up there.”