Tuesday, September 26, bands from multiple area schools gathered at Oswego High School to present their pieces in front of judges non-competitively.
The Marching Band Review is a way for bands to perform and receive criticisms for improvement. The criticisms are given by adjudicators, who each specialize in a part of a band.
Bands from many different schools arrived by bus and flooded onto the school’s football field to perform their halftime show performances. The schools involved in this large event were Sandwich, East Aurora, West Aurora, Metea Valley, Oswego East, Crystal Lake Central, Elgin, Yorkville, Reavis, and Oswego High Schools. Each school performed one at a time in front of four adjudicators: Brian Logan (Director of Bands at VanderCook College of Music), Dr. Benjamin Druffel (Marching Band Director at Eastern Illinois University), James Yakas (Percussion Director at VanderCook College of Music), and Jeannette Kreier (colorguard coach at Wheeling and Warren High Schools). The adjudicators watched the bands and gave their comments on how the performance was, and how to improve their performance. Every band that attended this event worked very hard to know their material.
Each school had been practicing the show that they had performed since their summer rehearsals. According to Stephanie San Roman, director of bands at OHS, our band “rehearsal for over 125 hours in the summer and then once the school year starts we practice twice a week for about 3 hours each rehearsal.”
An amazing night came from all of the long hours of practice. The turnout for the review was packed. The stadium was filled with people watching and listening to the performances, giving their support to the bands. And all of the bands did very well. Kevin Schoenbach, the associate director of bands, commented that the night went well, like previous reviews, and that he “enjoyed the Sandwich band and the amount of stuff they were able to do with a band that was roughly half the size of ours. Also, East Aurora was easily the best ever seen them, probably because OHS alumni Joe Kulick was recently hired as their assistant director”. The night was also a tremendous fundraiser in the band program, because of Band Boosters support.
Video by Tobi Osibodu 42Fifty Staff Vidographer
Student Publication of Oswego High School, Oswego, IL
