The Lehighton Area High School Indian Tribe Marching Band is no stranger to the big stage.

Previous versions have performed at Universal Studios, the Grand Ole Opry and Busch Gardens, just to name a few, but next week its sound will resonate throughout Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom for the first time under director Bryan Buffington.The band will fly from Philadelphia to Orlando on Monday and perform Thursday around 2:30 p.m. before the park’s Festival of Fantasy parade.“It’s pretty incredible in a small town like ours, to be part of a group that will go down there to represent our school’s music department,” senior band member Eliza Asmann said. “We’ve been preparing for several months with rehearsals about once a week and I think we’ve cleaned things up and are definitely prepared for this opportunity.”Lehighton held its last rehearsal on Wednesday, followed by words of encouragement from Buffington.“I’ve been hearing from staff here and the school and other people who have performed at Disney before and they all tell me they still get goose bumps when they think about it,” he told the band. “You’re going to be marching down Main Street USA with the Magic Kingdom’s castle behind you. Make sure you soak it all up. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”Buffington said he performed at SeaWorld in Orlando when he was a student, but jumped at the chance to take his band to Disney.The band put together a video audition, which can be found at

https://tinyurl.com/js6azdh and found out a few weeks later it had been accepted.“We went through the planning process with the school as far as getting everything approved, and we have to give a lot of credit to the band boosters for their fundraising efforts,” Buffington said. “We couldn’t do this alone and they tremendously reduced the cost of this trip.”Senior Kira Williams looks forward to the challenge of performing in front of what figures to be a large Magic Kingdom crowd.“Not many bands to get to do these trips, so we do consider ourselves very fortunate,” she said. “We have a wonderful music program, band boosters who have supported us for as long as I can remember and we really have the chance to do something significant here. It really gets the Lehighton name out there.”Lehighton’s performance comes one month after Tamaqua Area High School’s band performed at the Magic Kingdom.“It’s great to get out and show our kids the world,” Buffington said. “Whenever we go on these trips, to see the excitement on their face is exciting for me. These kids have a ton of talent and I know they’ll do a great job.”