FLEMING ISLAND – Band members and parents sat silently as Bob Bone provided details of a trip the school would be taking in 2027 to Madrid, Spain.

Puzzled, Bone wondered why they didn’t seem excited. 

Maybe they didn’t fully comprehend the magnitude of the invitation. Perhaps after making trips to London, Rome, and Carnegie Hall, they had become accustomed to accolades. 

Then the school’s principal, Thomas Pittman, broke the silence with a booming question. 

“Would you like to do that?” 

The room then erupted with cheers and screams. 

Bone is the President of the Youth Music of the World and Destination Events. He was at the school on Friday, Oct. 31, to formally invite the Golden Eagles Marching Band to Spain’s grandest national events, the Cabalgata de Reyes, a street show celebrating the arrival of the Three Kings on Epiphany, on Jan. 5, 2027. 

Bone said parades are staged throughout Spain, but the biggest is in Madrid, where the three-mile route will attract more than two million spectators. 

The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and the parade organizers also shared an invitation to Fleming Island, Bone said. 

Fleming Island was one of two bands from the United States – and there are more than 5,500 marching bands in the country – that were invited to perform at the Cabalgata de Reyes. In all, Bone said only six bands will participate from around the world. 

“It’s quite a magical and fantastic event,” Bone said. “And, of course, the Madrid one is the one chosen to be televised all around the Spanish-speaking world. And they conduct a very professional, multi-camera live operation from start to finish. Everybody gets an awful lot of TV time.” 

The band will depart on Dec. 30, 2026, and arrive the following day. They will tour Madrid, Toledo, Segovia and El Escorial. They will be treated to a variety of Spanish cuisines, including a selection of tapas dishes, as well as an evening of traditional flamenco dancing. 

“As you process along there, they’d like you to stop every now and then and go to the crowds and high-five and do whatever, because they just love to see you,” Bone said. “It really is fantastic. The crowd is expected to be around two million, with grandstands lining the streets on both sides, all the way down the route. 

The thing is that from the floats, they’re all equipped with tons and tons and tons of candy, sweets as we call them. And the thing is that all the people on the floats take handfuls of this stuff and throw it into the crowds as we go along.” 

Band director Alexander Buck said the band will fundraise during the next 14 months to cover the trip costs. He estimated the cost to be $650,000. 

“We sort of reached out and asked about how to apply, and because of our accolades and our hard work of the students, we were given this invitation,” Buck said. 

When asked about the challenge of raising $650,000 in a little more than a year, Buck was adamantly confident the band would meet its goal. 

“We’ll get it done,” he said. “The community always steps up.” 

Cabalgata de Reyes heralds the arrival of the three kings in every town, village, [and] city in Spain,” Bone said. “It produces from its worthy citizenry, generally speaking, the mayor and other councilors, the three kings to be on a float dressed, some exotic. There’s all sorts of crazy stuff in these processions, a lot of musical stuff, bands – two from the United States of America.”

Including one from Fleming Island.