At every Pottsville football game, the PAHS marching band comes to support the team and blow the crowd away with their music. This group of musicians inspires many students throughout the school district. The band also gives student musicians an opportunity to display all the hard work they put into their performance and music. Seventh grade student Jillian Horvath is one of the many members of this group. 

     Jillian is in the band, yet she is only in middle school. She came up to be in the high school band because a tuba player dropped out in August and three tubas were not enough to perform the show as written. Horvath was happy to have the chance to perform with the band because music has positively impacted her life by giving her more confidence.  Horvath said, “It’s helped me through…sometimes I get a little too emotional and it helps me through.”

     Like many musicians, she has a deep passion for instruments along with her family. Her father, Mr. Stephen Horvath, is the Assistant Band Director for the marching band. Her mother, Mrs. Casey Horvath, a Special Education teacher at the high school, plays the flute, and Jillian’s brother Nicholas is a freshman who plays trombone for the band. Jillian plays the tuba because not many people do, and it’s a unique instrument. While playing tuba in the marching band, her favorite part is playing in the stands “because [she] get[s] to play Seven Nation Army”.

     Horvath has enjoyed her time playing this year. “Everyone’s been really nice,” Horvath said.