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by Jacob Cox
The NS band and choir received high marks in their region competitions last week, and now they have a decision to make about the state competition.
At the region festival, the band received scores of 1, 1- , and 2 which is the equivalent of an A, A-, and a B.
“I thought that the band played really well,” said band teacher Timothy Kidder, “We picked some challenging music and some long pieces, and they did a really fine job. It felt really good as we left the stage.”
And because they did well, they must now decide whether or not they want to go on to state band because there is a bit of a twist to the competition this year. Any school can enter the state band festival because they are doing it online.
“I think we will enter the state competition just because we already know the songs,” Kidder said. “Making a recording of that and sending it in for state wouldn’t be difficult at all but we have to check with the administration and the band first and see if that’s something that they want to do.”
The songs that they have prepared for region and state band are “Fantasy on American Sailing Songs” by Clair Grundman, “Amazing Grace” by Frank Ticheli and “Our Director” by Fredrick Bigelow.
“We haven’t really performed these songs yet,” Kidder said. “This was the first time we have actually performed and so there was a lot of anxiety, but overall, I think we did pretty well and we just worked hard on our songs and did well at region band.”
And since they haven’t performed this year, it was definitely a new experience for them, but they pulled through and overall did great at region.
“I think we did really well,” senior Colin Zanocco. “We put in a lot of effort in these songs and I think that we’ve been playing them really well and just putting in time and doing what we need to do and I think it’s paid off.”
And while the band put in a lot of effort with Kidder for region, they aren’t the only ones putting in effort. The choir saw their hard work pay off as they received scores of a 1, 1, and a 1-, which is the equivalent of an A, A and an A-, and the women’s chorus received scores of 1-, 1- and a 2+ which is the equivalent of an A-, A-, and a B+.
“The choir has been putting in a lot of work,” Kidder said. “We aren’t used to performing, but we have the ability to blow people away and we have really good singers. Each of the pieces I picked are really challenging. They each have their own thing that’s going to show off how good we really are.”
And with how the choir performed, the songs certainly did have something that showed off what the choir could do. The choir will be one of the three in the region going to the state festival in Farmington. Manti, Delta and NS will be the three performing for the state festival, which is in person. The choir director for Utah’s Music Education Association chose to have the choir option for in person state.
