Video: Ohio State marching band explores the space race at halftime

Buckeye fans know The Ohio State University Marching Band musicians have the right stuff, and they proved it with a tribute to the dawn of the space age at halftime during the football game against Michigan State University.

Titled “One Giant Leap,” the halftime show mixed music from “The Right Stuff,” “Apollo 13” and “First Man” with formations that included a rocket blasting off from Cape Canaveral, an astronaut on a spacewalk and a lunar module landing on the moon.

Marching band director Christopher Hoch designed the drill with Dublin Jerome High School Director of Bands Brian Stevens. Their design included an American rocket overtaking a Soviet rocket to the music of Gustav Holst’s “Jupiter” and a space capsule landing safely on Earth to the theme from “Apollo 13.”

The halftime show also included more than 70 piccolo players joining the marching band to perform “Stars and Stripes Forever.” The piccolo players, performing under the direction of Katherine Borst Jones, professor in the School of Music, held a reunion this weekend. More than 50 are alumni and 20 are current students.

Current marching band member Nicole Conte, who is a flutist majoring in instrumental musical performance, was joined on the field by her mother, Marni. Nicole plays mellophone in the marching band, and Marni is a former TBDBITL member and music student who had Jones as a professor. Nicole’s father, Michael, was also in the marching band at Ohio State.

Adam Brott, a mechanical engineering major from Hartsville, was the i-dotter this week.

Fans of the marching band have the opportunity to vote on social media for their favorite halftime formation after each new performance. Follow @TBDBITL on Twitter to vote on Monday mornings.