SENIOR SPOTLIGHT - NHS VITTORIA PAGLIARDINI

Leading the Northview Marching Knights may seem like a daunting task, but for Northview senior Vittoria Pagliardini, it was an incredible opportunity. Vittoria was the drum major for the marching band this year, and she explains her motivation to achieve this position.

“I just thought that this is going to be my fifth year doing marching band, and I have such a love and there’s such a place in my heart for NMK, that I wanted to be the face of my senior year’s marching band.”

Vittoria is also involved in Drum Corps International (DCI), an elite world-class marching band.

“I wanted to do more than just my high school marching band, and I was always watching their shows... I wanted to be able to say ‘Oh, I did something like this, I did this.’”

Pagliardini explains that her proudest accomplishment is her corps’s performance in the past year.

“We placed in finals for the first time in 13 years. It was the combination of everyone’s determination and motivation to prove that we belonged in finals.”

Unlike most high school students, Vittoria has the unique opportunity to travel and live in different parts of Europe without many restrictions. She was born in Italy, so she is a member of the European Union and plans to use this in the future.

Pagliardini explains that she wants to stay in the United States until she’s 21 so that she can participate in DCI more. Then, she plans to move to Europe and further her education in a unique way.

“I’m really interested in the study of languages, and since I’m a member of the European Union I’m planning on moving to Germany and studying German just by being there. Then I’m going to move on to other parts of Europe.”

Vittoria is already bilingual and has also started learning German.

“It’s always come so easily to me that I always excelled in translating between languages... I really enjoy it.”

Vittoria’s favorite memory from high school was her final performance at state finals in Lucas Oil Stadium.

“NMK has been more of my life than even high school itself has been since it reached beyond that, and for it all to be over in those eight minutes of the show that we performed was really emotional and was a really permanent memory.”