St. Margaret’s Middle and Upper School student band performed the National Anthem, alongside other local schools, at Angel Stadium in Anaheim this week.

The arrangement the students played is the version used by the U.S. Marine Band, and the students invested hard work and practice to play the familiar song in front of thousands of baseball fans in a unique experience.

Chris Carbajal, St. Margaret’s band director, expressed his excitement for the students to experience playing for a large audience in a large setting. More than 35,000 fans were at the game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Chicago White Sox.

“I’m so proud of our students. The acoustics in a stadium are quite difficult. There is a harsh echo that you hear while playing. It’s easy to ‘play with your echo’ but doing that throws the timing of the music off,” Mr. Carbajal said. “The only way to succeed is to watch me. Basically, the students had to ‘play with their eyes, not their ears,’ which is not intuitive as musicians. The students watched my direction the entire time and played beautifully. I hope to continue to seek out special performance opportunities like this for the band.”

The students also reflected on the thrill of the memorable performance.

“It was a really cool experience,” Upper School student Jessica Liu said. “It was amazing to play in front of a large audience.”