BY MIKAYLA LABEE & KAYLYN FISCHER

The Maize South High band and the Maize South Middle band both had a concert on Mar 6. The concert was to help both bands prepare for upcoming contests. With both high school and middle school families attending, the auditorium was full, nearly to capacity.

“We’re doing it with the middle schoolers as well so it’s kind of to help them because their contest is coming up quicker than it usually is so we’re trying to get them prepared and ready to go,” Grace Lowe, 9, said.

Band started working on the pieces they performed at the beginning of the term in Jan.

“We started working on them at the beginning of the third term because we do playing tests every term,” Lowe said.

The four pieces played by the high school band were “Shine” by Michael Markowski, “Loch Lomond” by Frank Ticheli, “Evocatio” by Brian Balmages, and “The Liberty Bell” by John Philip Sousa.

The concert went well and the band made very few mistakes. As always, there is room for improvement.

“It went pretty good, we made a couple mistakes but we came back from them,” Josh Seville, 12, said. “I think all together we just need to practice a little bit more and get past just the notes and get more into actually making music.”

Their first contest as a band is April 18 at Wichita East High School. Solos and small ensembles compete at Regionals on April 14 at Goddard Eisenhower. State competition for the band is on April 28 held at Emporia High School.
As band continues to practice for their next show on April 10, choir is also preparing for their concert on March 15. Tyler Koepp, choir, has prepared the students with songs from the popular classic, Grease.

Hannah Dingler, 11, plays with the band at their concert on Mar. 6. The high school band and middle school band both had a concert the same night. Photo by B. Smith