Emily would have loved it.
The giant cartoon band leader waving its arms, the riot of flowers on floats outside, all the musicians in one place. But maybe not the sight of her Dad, in gray fleece and black pants, trying not to weep into his trombone.
“I don’t think she would have teased me,” Joshua Boyd said. “If anything, she may have cried, too.”
Such was the loving heart of Emily Nicole Boyd, who was 8 when she passed away on June 1, 2018. She was the eldest among three daughters of Josh and Kelli Boyd of Jurupa Valley.
It was her life and her story that reduced a warehouse full of adults to tears on Dec. 31.
A video of the 360-member Band Directors Marching Band performing “Amazing Grace” before the Rose Parade has gone viral, with more than 1.1 million views -and counting- and over 40,000 interactions since New Year’s Eve.
Their audience: people impacted by organ and tissue donation gathered in a chilly warehouse near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
The minute and 47 seconds of a song would leave all those in attendance with a sense of wonder at how two groups of people could find each other in the waning hours of 2025 and create one unforgettable sacred moment.
A chance encounter
The Band Directors Marching Band, made up of current and retired band directors from all 50 states, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama, were in Pasadena to perform for Tournament of Roses judges, as part of their combined band and float entry to the 137th Rose Parade from the Michael D. Sewell Memorial Foundation.
Their float, “Banding Together” was one of 16 Rose Parade entries produced by Artistic Entertainment Services, all of which stood outside the Rosemont Pavilion that day.
“We were just waiting for the judges, and I was just walking around,” said the band’s director, Jon Waters, of Port Clinton, Ohio. “Right next to us in the float barn was the OneLegacy Donate Life folks. I was really touched seeing the faces of people who had donated organs pictured in that float. I just felt moved.”
Waters asked OneLegacy officials if his group could play “Amazing Grace” for them. The band members had received their music the month before and so knew the special arrangement of that hymn.
The musicians played it once but were asked for a repeat performance because not all the OneLegacy families knew what was happening.
“During that first one, I could hardly play,” Boyd said. “The emotions of knowing who we were playing for, and thinking of my own sweet Emily just washed over me. Tears ran down my face and only a few notes came out.”
Waters then arranged to perform it again so all the families could come and enjoy the moment. That was the performance that made it online.
The members of the Band Directors Marching Band are dedicated to “service through music,” as inspired by longtime Ohio teacher Michael D. Sewell, They realized that mission again on the final rainy day of 2025, performing what has now become a viral rendition of “Amazing Grace.” (Photo courtesy of OneLegacy DonateLife) Jon Waters, band director of The Band Directors Marching Band, leads his 360-members in “Amazing Grace,” in an impromptu performance for OneLegacy Donate Life families at the Rosemont Pavilion in Pasadena on Dec. 31. (Photo courtesy of OneLegacy Donate Life) A photo of Joshua and Kelli Boyd’s family includes the image of their eldest daughter Emily, who was 8 when she passed away in 2018 and became an organ donor. Emily Boyd’s memory was a grace in a viral performance her musical director father was part of before the Rose Parade in 2025. (Photo courtesy, Joshua Boyd) Joshua Boyd and his daughter Emily, 8, in a photo before her 2018 death. A viral performance by the Band Directors Marching Band on Dec. 31 was dedicated in part to her memory. (Photo courtesy of Joshua Boyd) In an impromptu viral moment, the 360-member Band Directors Marching Band of the Michael D. Sewell Foundation performed “Amazing Grace” on Dec. 31 in honor of OneLegacy Donate Life donors and recipients. (Photo courtesy of OneLegacy DonateLife) Show Caption1 of 5The members of the Band Directors Marching Band are dedicated to “service through music,” as inspired by longtime Ohio teacher Michael D. Sewell, They realized that mission again on the final rainy day of 2025, performing what has now become a viral rendition of “Amazing Grace.” (Photo courtesy of OneLegacy DonateLife) ExpandWaters said when he heard about Boyd and his daughter, he was dumbfounded.
“That, for me, was a God moment,” he said. “I brought him forward and I could barely speak. We dedicated that performance to the families, the donors, the recipients and to Joshua and Emily.”
Boyd himself was grateful he could simply stand with the musicians and families and be Emily’s dad.
“There was not a dry eye anywhere,” he said. “The personal connection from the band to OneLegacy brought it to life for the band. It truly was service through music, and a moment none of us will ever forget.”
“There were tears,” said John Cisetti, one of the assistant band directors of the marching band. “We are all called to service: service to family, service to community, service to country. We, musicians, are specifically called to use our God-given talents and practiced skills to lift up and support others. That performance was our gift of honor to those families. OneLegacy is an important cause. It saves lives. We were honored to perform for them.”
Who they did it for
Officials at OneLegacy, the Azusa nonprofit that organizes organ, eye, and tissue donation in Southern California, said the “moving and significant impromptu performance … is why OneLegacy staff and volunteers connect with local communities to share the importance of saying ‘yes’ to organ donation.”
Elsa Garcia-Chau, 61, of Artesia, found herself standing with the musicians, a crown of red roses on her head, hands clasped to her heart. This is her “bonus” heart, received from a 27-year-old African American woman via transplant almost three years ago.
“I nestled myself between two trumpet players, and thought it would be too loud, but it wasn’t, which, as a former saxophone player in a band, I could appreciate,” the retired English schoolteacher said. “The music, I felt it on my chest, every recess of my being. I’ll remember how it resonated, it hummed. It was so calming and so emotional. I will remember it deeply.”
Garcia-Chau began to clap even before the last note of the music faded away. She spoke with one band director about the gift Boyd and his daughter, and how one conversation can open up ways to talk about organ and tissue donation.
“It’s like holding that door open for someone else on your way out,” she said. “Why not do it? Put yourself in someone else’s shoes.”
From the standpoint of someone who has been given “bonus days,” as she calls it, Garcia-Chau said the serenade honors the power anyone has to decide to “Donate Life.”
The OneLegacy connection
For Josh and Kelli Boyd, the decision to donate Emily’s organs in 2018, with help from OneLegacy, was easy.
“She continued to bless people after her death, blessing three lives with a new heart, kidneys, and liver,” Boyd said. “Being part of the donor and recipient ‘family’ is a group we never wanted to be in but is such a special group.”
The family, including their two younger daughters, continue to honor Emily through monthly park meetups to enjoy her favorite cheeseburgers (preferably from Jack in the Box, well done and plain.) They remember her love of reading, of skipping and not walking, of her sisters.
Boyd said the OneLegacy float, and what it represents, is his favorite float in the parade every year. But 2025 brought another surprise. Boyd learned that Lloyd Nilson, a Rubidoux volunteer firefighter featured in a floragraph on this year’s float was the son of his first piano teacher, Clarice Nilson.
“She started me in music and so the connection to the float was especially strong this year,” Boyd said.
For Waters, who will return to Pasadena next year as director of the Bowling Green University marching band, this Rose Parade is a high note that will be hard to beat.
“In my career, I have never had a more emotional musical experience than that day in the rain, in the float barn, in the shadow of the Rose Bowl stadium,” he said. “I will never forget it in my lifetime.”
The thousands of comments posted to the OneLegacy video includes stories of people’s own connection to organ donation and many others noting the importance of music education.
“That moment brought out the power of music,” Waters said. “Music is what makes us human beings. It’s a very uniquely human thing and to be able to express in music what you can’t express in words is why we do what we do.”
Karen Sewell, widow of Michael Sewell, longtime band director at Pickerington High School in Ohio, is president of the foundation that bears his name. He taught music for more than 38 years and passed away in 2017 at age 59, beloved for inspiring students and teachers alike to service through music.
The foundation’s Band Directors Marching Band made its Rose Parade debut in 2022 and has since performed at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the 9/11 Memorial ceremony.
“My husband absolutely would have selected ‘Amazing Grace’ because that was his signature song to provide hope, encouragement, inspiration, thanks, just to give peace,” Sewell said. “His Pickerington Marching Tigers and now The Band Directors Marching Band use it as a way to give tribute and it becomes not necessarily a hymn, but a song of hope and a way to remember our common ground with so many.”
The Sewells’ friend and longtime Marching Tiger band arranger, retired U.S. Air Force Robert Thurston arranged the version the group performed especially for the Band Directors Marching Band to use.
“It’s a wonderful way for this new group to have a connection to Mike and his years of service too,” Sewell said. “I’m so happy our group could provide a musical moment for those deserving, special families. It wasn’t planned, but with amazing grace, we all connected in our float barn on Dec 31st and made a difference.”
Sewell said she takes that minute and 47 seconds of grace as a sign from her husband that life endures. Love doesn’t end.
“Mike loves to send ‘God winks’ to me and I believe this was a huge one,” she added. He would have endorsed this performance, Cisetti added. He would have done the same.
Hence then, the article about how sweet the sound the story behind a viral rose parade musical moment was published today ( ) and is available on Los Angeles Daily News ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( ‘How sweet the sound’: The story behind a viral Rose Parade musical moment )
Also on site :