11/08/2026
Liberty High School Grenadier Band
National Marching Music Day’s Palace Parade Review and Drumline London
London Band Week, 2026 …. See below:
There is a rather special story behind these uniforms.
The Liberty High School Grenadier Band of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is no ordinary American high school marching band. Its distinctive British identity stretches back almost sixty years and, far from being a casual imitation of British military tradition, has grown from a remarkable and enduring friendship with the Band of the Coldstream Guards.
In the late 1960s, Liberty's then Director, Ronald P. Sherry, began shaping the band in the tradition of the British Army's Household Division, adopting the Grenadier identity and adding its Pipes and Drums.
In 1981, that inspiration became a personal relationship when Liberty established a connection with the Band of the Coldstream Guards during the Guards' North American tour and their performance in Bethlehem under Lieutenant Colonel R. A. Ridings.
What followed was not simply admiration from afar, but decades of genuine friendship, musical exchange and mentorship between two bands on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
In 1986, Liberty made its first journey to the United Kingdom, parading through Trafalgar Square and performing side-by-side with the Coldstream Guards at the Royal Albert Hall. Two years later, Coldstream Director of Music Captain Roger Swift travelled to Pennsylvania to guest-conduct Liberty's Spring Concert, while Sergeant Gale Lawson began visiting the band's summer rehearsals in Bethlehem, helping generations of young American musicians understand and authentically reproduce the traditions that had inspired them.
The relationship continued to flourish. Liberty returned to Britain in 1994 to perform with the Guards at Guildford Civic Hall; in 1996 the two bands celebrated a decade of partnership with a combined concert at Fairfield Hall in Croydon, during a tour which also took Liberty to Coldstream itself and to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. A Millennium Tour followed in 2000, with another performance at Guildford Civic Hall.
The friendship travelled westward too. Coldstream musicians and Directors of Music became familiar visitors to Bethlehem, performing with and guest-conducting Liberty. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, when the Coldstream Guards travelled to New York to perform, Liberty students made the journey to hear their friends and mentors and meet the Guards' new Director of Music, Major Graham Jones. He subsequently guest-conducted Liberty's 2003 Spring Concert.
The relationship even found its way onto recordings: Liberty and the Coldstream Guards have recorded together, leaving a musical record of a partnership which has endured across generations of students and professional military musicians.
In 2004, Liberty returned once more to Britain for another combined performance with the Coldstream Guards. It would prove to be their final UK visit for more than two decades.
And so, when the Liberty High School Grenadier Band returned to London in 2026 as part of London Band Week, those famous scarlet tunics and bearskins represented far more than an attractive uniform. They carried with them nearly six decades of history and more than forty years of direct friendship with one of the British Army's most distinguished musical institutions. Indeed, Liberty's uniforms are made by Kashket & Partners in London, makers of uniforms for the Household Division itself.
For London Band Week, that history matters. International exchange is at its best when traditions are not merely observed but shared, respected and passed from one generation to another. Liberty's Grenadier tradition is a wonderful example of precisely that: an American school band inspired by British military music which, through decades of friendship, visits, performances and mentorship, has become part of the story itself.
And then there is the band.
They are superb.
Behind all the pageantry is an extraordinary group of young musicians and a programme with a history stretching back a century. They perform with discipline, pride and tremendous character, carrying something that generations of Liberty students before them have worked very hard to preserve. The Bethlehem Area School District rightly describes Liberty as one of its nationally recognised and award-winning marching bands.
If you are ever fortunate enough to visit Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, you will understand that the Grenadier Band is considerably more than a school activity. It is woven into the fabric of the place. The town knows its band, supports its band and is immensely proud of it. Even the language of the band's community fundraising — with names such as "Coldstream", "Bearskin" and "Rule, Britannia!" — speaks to how deeply this heritage has become embedded in Liberty's identity.
Most importantly, Bethlehem is proud of the extraordinary friendship that exists between its young musicians and the British military tradition which inspired them all those years ago.
We were enormously proud to welcome the Liberty High School Grenadier Band back to London in 2026 — bearskins, scarlet tunics, Pipes and Drums and all. They have earned the right to wear them with considerable pride.
