Antonio Torres is the senior drum major in the WVW Marching Spartans, but his musical involvement goes back many years.
“Technically my first music experience was in third grade, when I played the recorder,” says Torres. “But obviously [as] third graders, we all suck at the recorder and we put it away in our closet and never touch it ever again. So that was short lived.”
Although he never picked up the recorder again, Torres did pick up a more advanced instrument.
“Fifth grade is when I first started playing sax. I played alto sax, like most fifth graders did, and I stuck with it.”
He now plays the tenor saxophone, an instrument he says he almost didn’t play.
“Throughout middle school, I switched between tenor and alto like two times because I was having an identity crisis with my saxophones. But in ninth grade, when I went to register for my saxophone, I wanted to play the [baritone] sax, but I guess Mr. K was like ‘Nah.’ So he just gave me a tenor sax instead, and I ended up liking it more.”
After initially joining marching band freshman year, Torres became one of the Spartans’ two drum majors his junior year. The decision to tryout he says, was more an impulse decision.
“To be completely honest, it just started as ‘Let me try out. Why not?’ But as I started drum majoring I started realizing the significance of being a drum major and what it means to be a drum major—being a leader and what it means to lead a band and present to an audience.”
Even with the added responsibilities of drum major, Torres still sees himself as just another band kid with the same fun memories as everyone else.
“Band trips are usually one of the most exciting times of my year. We go out places, we go to the beach, we went to Boston this year . . . Most of my memories are associated with non-musical things, but that’s the fun part.”
Beyond the instrumental music he plays in band class, Torres also sings as a part of the concert choir, and put his vocal talents to use in the spring musical production of Anastasia.
“I had really no expectations going for [my] audition. I was kinda just like ‘I’m gonna audition, and whatever role I get or if I don’t get a role, whatever.’”
It was his senior year, and he had never auditioned for any of the school’s theater productions before. It came as a surprise to Torres that the role he did get was the male lead.
“That was an honor, most definitely for my first ever theater role . . . It ended up being one of the best experiences of my senior year.”
With that positive first time experience under his belt, Torres is now exploring other theater opportunities.
“I ended up catching the bug, ‘the theater bug’ as they say. I’m doing performances for Ovation [Playhouse’s] Mean Girls . . . and I just auditioned for High School Musical over at Little Theatre.”
Now that senior year is all but done, Torres is preparing for the next step in his musical journey.
“You can probably guess—Marywood University. I’m going in as a music education major for saxophone. Right now my current plan is [do] four years, go there, develop my craft, learn how to be a teacher and be a good musician and I’ll go from there.”
Torres has one last piece of advice for any underclassmen.
“For all my high school friends: have fun. Don’t take all this too seriously because, in a sense, once you graduate high school pretty much all of this is just gone and done with. My thing is just try and enjoy your time here, hang out with the right people, do stuff, find extracurriculars that you like to do—there’s always something you can find to do—and just do what makes you feel good and what you know will make you satisfied in the future.”
