On November 19th, Redwood Band and Color guard will be traveling down to Southern California to perform at the WBA 4A state competition in Riverside, California.
Redwood is having a historic season going undefeated in music and percussion captions as well as being a top 4A band in the central valley, but does not want the momentum to end here.
At WBA state championships, bands compete on Saturday, and the top 23 bands move on to Sunday for Grand Championships. Redwood is coming into this with the goal of making it to Sunday, after failing to do so by one spot in 2019.
In preparation for the competition trumpet player Gavin Stoll ‘25 says “We practice Monday and Thursday [from] 6-9 and spend an hour everyday in class making the music sound better and clean up visuals.”
“I believe I can motivate others and set an example moving forward in the season” Stoll says
When asked if there was any nervousness Stoll confidently says “I’m not really nervous because I know that everyone is trying as hard as they can and I know that Redwood will work harder than the others and prove that we are better”.
Senior flute soloist Chloe Rojas ‘23 says, “This competition really has a different feel to it”.
One thing that Rojas says that they can improve on is keeping in sync with the drum majors because “there are times where some of us are on autopilot”.
When talking about their solo Rojas says “There is still room for improvement, but I am glad I sound better than before”.
This competition is a very big deal to the band and Rojas says, “We are going to go against 10 different schools in our division, so we really need to give it all we have.”
Nick Schonken ‘23 is also a senior in band, he plays the mellophone as well as being the mellophone section leader.
This being his last competition in high school Schonken says, “Marching our last run of the year is going to be bittersweet. I love marching band so much.”
“I am very confident in my section and, more importantly, in the band as a whole.”Schonken says.
A big thing that is important to Schonken is that he does his best, he says “It is my job to keep myself on an upwards trajectory and always push myself to improve in everything I do.”
Collectively, everyone has high confidence in their performing abilities.
Stoll says “I’m excited to prove that Redwood is a serious contender to win state.”
rachel vilhauer
Rachel Vilhauer '25 is a first year journalism member of the Redwood Gigantea. She is interested in writing art stories specifically for band but is open to any story in the arts section.
You can contact her at:
rache.vi8618@vusd.us
Tags: Anehiem, band, band awards, band teacher, BOA, Buena Park, california, colorguard, competition, guard, marching band, marching season, rangers, Redwood, redwood high school, redwood rangers, redwoodcolorguard, rhs, Riverside, state, state competition, visalia, visalia ca, visalia california, WBA
