PHS Band Eyes France, Not China, After Coronavirus Scare

FALLSINGTON, PA — With the new coronavirus outbreak threatening a planned trip to China, the Pennsbury High School Marching Band is now eyeing France.

At a meeting of the Pennsbury school board on Thursday, organizers said they've scrambled to line up performances and travel arrangements for the band in France after health concerns grew about a planned visit to Shanghai, Beijing and other locations in China.

"We plan these trips about a year and a half out," Frank Mazzeo, co-director of the marching band, said at Thursday's meeting. "It was very unfortunate with what happned, to say the least, with China. We scrambled the last week and a half trying to find something else for our kids to do."

The Pennsbury school board approved the trip for the "Long Orange Line" last year. From April 2-10, the band was scheduled to visit Shanghai, China's largest city, and Beijing, its capital.

Instead, Mazzeo said, school officials have lined up four performances for marching and jazz band members in France — at Disneyland Paris, at the Normandy American Cemetery, at a French university along with French high school students and a stand-still performance at the Eiffel Tower.

The last time the Pennsbury band visited France was 1993.

He said the France trip would be a "cost-neutral alternative" to the China trip, with a difference of only about $15 for band members and chaperones making the trip.

The trip would take place around April 4-12, though Mazzeo told school board members there may be some slight changes to that based on what organizers can work out with a travel company.

The school board did not vote on the France plan on Thursday. They next meet on Feb. 20, though Mazzeo said he'd like to be able to unofficially nail the trip down with the travel company by around Feb. 12.

Board members thanked administrators and volunteers, including Pennsbury High's music boosters group, for the work they've done since concerns about coronavirus in China arose.

"As a father of a child in the marching band and also as the school board president, I have been actively involved in many conversations on this topic over the last several weeks ...," said board President T.R. Kannan.

As of Friday morning, there had been more than 31,000 cases of the new coronavirus reported worldwide, most of them in China, and at least 636 deaths related to it.