By Kevin Pacelli ’14
Senior Entertainment Editor
A senior in the Trumbull High School Golden Eagle Marching Band started a stopwatch timer when he walked into the first practice of the 2012 Fall season, and made sure it was ticking at every practice and band class period. The final count on his timer was 410 hours of band work by the last day. All of that hard work culminated into a fantastic performance at Kennedy Stadium in Bridgeport for the Musical Arts Conference championship.
The band’s show this fall, entitled “Maria,” featured the music from West Side Story. They began work with the new music back in July, and started learning their drill in the middle of August. After that, it was just a lot of practice, cleaning, and fine-tuning.
For the band members, the season was very frustrating at times. Week after week, they would give their all at competitions on Saturdays, only to hear their name called for second place at the end of the night, behind Norwalk High School’s band by more than a full point (which is quite a bit, in the world of marching band). At the last competition between the two bands before championships, the Golden Eagles found themselves down by a large margin of 1.7.
That didn’t stop them from trying though. For two weeks, the students worked with determination to come as close to perfection as possible. It comes as no surprise that after putting on the show of their lives on november 10, 2012 and losing by a mere tenth of a point at championships, not much shame was felt among the band members. The Eagles came in first in the Marching and Drum Major categories, and tied for first in General Effect.
Great article Kevin. It sure felt like a lot longer than 410 hours to me. Good season everyone.