Band performs at festival in Litchfield

by William Belson

The high school concert band attended a festival on March 10, which makes it the first festival that the band has attended in over a year. At a festival, the band will do two things: they will play their prepared music pieces, in front of an audience, then they will go to a sight-reading session where a judge will critique them on the songs that they sight-read and played.

The selected songs the high school band performed were Alamo March, Joyant Winds, and Highland Legend. A band professor from Adrian College judged and critiqued the band on the selected songs that were performed earlier. The advice was quite helpful to the band and very much needed to help the band play the pieces better for the festival concert they’ll host at PHS on Mach 17.

The band played fairly well, but they have room for some improvement. “They performed the march (Alamo March) the best. They did a really good job on contrast and style of march. We had a couple of mistakes in the other two songs and things we just need to clean up on for the next concert,” said Mr. Spitler.

Even though it reads that the band did well, they were pretty equal on their strengths and their weaknesses in the performance. “We stayed together well, we could hear each other well. We also stayed in tune mostly together and people were trying very hard, but we have to have individuals take care of their parts,” said Mr. Spitler.

The students of the band were not short on praise of their festival performance songs. “(Our best piece was) Highland Legend because all the clarinet parts came out well,” said senior drum major Jessica Ruder. Freshman Elliott Krasny thought their strength lied in a different piece. “I think the song we did the best was the Alamo March because it is the easiest song we have, so every one can hit the notes and phrase it correctly,” said Elliot. The band’s performers were not all in agreement on the songs that they personally thought that the band did well on. “I think we performed Joyant Winds the best. I like the way that song sounds and the contrast of that song. It is the easiest song for me to play,” explained freshman Michael Hanning.

Though there were no trophies awarded at this festival, our high school band sure learned quite a bit and got a little more practice in before their festival concert in the big gym. This band festival that the band attended is a big help to every one in it.