Redwood Winter Percussion at Los Osos High School

On Saturday, February 15th, the Redwood Winter Percussion Ensemble traveled 4 hours on a bus to Rancho Cucamonga, where they performed their show, ‘i, Omega’ at Los Osos High School. Their performance earned them 5th place out of 7.

By: Ella Chan

This year, the ensemble took a different approach with their season. Los Osos was their second competition, and the group had a positive outlook on the trip. Oftentimes their competitions are held locally, so entering in the ensemble kept an open mind of how things could’ve played out. 

Drumline and snare section leader Aiden Lupian, ‘25, found that, “It was great [performing outside the Central Valley]. I liked the new environment, new scenes, seeing new stuff. I hate the gyms at Clovis, so the new gym, I personally liked it a lot. I liked how high it was. I felt less anxious because they [the audience] were farther away.” 

“It was different in the way we approached it. I feel like we were a lot more ‘cautious’ because we were around people we aren’t normally with,” says Lupian. 

“It’s always a fun experience [performing outside the central valley],” Vibraphone player, Acacia Eppling, ‘27, says, “Getting to see the other schools that aren’t Clovis, it’s interesting.”

Lupian acknowledges that this event is not their ‘run of the mill Clovis show.’

Similarly, snare drum player Sebastian Mendoza, ‘26, felt positive about the new site. “It felt cool,” Mendoza says, “it felt way better performing outside the central valley. These central circuits get kind of repetitive, and so it was a nice change of environment and competition.” 

“A lot of the schools there are huge and really good, and you know, we’re in a small town and kind of a small school. It was scary, I was intimidated.” Says marimba player, Sarah Buckley, ‘28. Despite her nerves, she shares that she felt good about the ensemble’s performance, and her playing individually. 

“I was hoping to have a way better run than the Clovis show, and we did!” Lupian says, “I was also hoping that pit [the front ensemble] would stay together as well, cause without pit staying together we kind of fall apart. All my hopes for battery kind of happened, I mean I wanted us to stay clean, I wanted us to stay together. Visually we were okay, on the floor we were okay. Another hope I had was not to place last, and we did that but only because of [other groups’] time penalties.”

Eppling admits, “I was hoping that we’d do a lot better than we actually did, but I’m still fine with the outcome.”

Though their scores weren’t the highest, this doesn’t hold the ensemble back nor kill their spirits. “When we were practicing in the lot I thought we were doing pretty good!” says Eppling. 

Mendoza says, “I was kind of hoping we’d make more of an impact, more of a statement.” Either way, being able to set that new standard already establishes a new mindset for each of the players. Knowing what they need to work on is essential, and as the season progresses they can only improve from there. 

“We wanted to make a statement, we wanted to make our names known. We want to do good,” says Lupian. 

With the new competition bracket, it came along with unfamiliar competition. Mendoza found that the ensemble had a different mindset going into the performance. Being around schools they normally aren’t around was another new aspect on top of it all. 

“It was a good learning experience and I’m glad that we did it in the end, now we know what the standard is over there,” says Mendoza.

Lupian finds that, “Honestly I’m not too disappointed [about the scores] because it’s a new environment, new competition, new venue. We’ve never played there before, we’ve never competed against these schools before. So honestly I don’t think it was bad and we’ll do better next time we go over there.”

Buckley was very optimistic, going on to say, “Scoring wise we didn’t really do good but personally for us we did great,” Buckley says, “I think I did pretty good. I mean usually I’m super nervous but I think I did pretty good!”

On the other hand, Eppling felt their performance was okay. “There were some parts that were good, but then there were other parts where it was iffy, you know?”

Lupian adds, “we for sure did better than our first competition in Clovis. At least for battery musically, we were a lot cleaner and we listened into each other more so there was a lot more clarity. I’m sure the judges would agree. The only thing as a full ensemble that we tend to do and need to work on is slow down. Everyone slows down a lot. But other than that it was definitely a step up from our first performance.”

This is something the ensemble can agree with. All together they find that staying in time with one another is something they can all work on. But besides this issue in their playing, they continue to keep their chins up, and hopes high with their playing. 

“Overall it was a good performance from the battery side of it, specifically snares. I can’t speak for everyone because I wasn’t listening to everyone, but over what I had control over and what I heard, it did sound good,” says Mendoza.

Along with acknowledging the need to improve overall together, each of these players have things in mind that they need to work on.

For Lupian on an individual level, “I think I did pretty well. I remember at the first show,” he laughs, “There was a couple mistakes I made, especially in our big break/exposed moments where it’s just like our section, the snares. But this time I think I had a solid run.” But as said before, he wants to work on playing together, and dynamics to enhance their performance.

Both Buckley and Eppling hope to work on their note accuracy and playing things up to tempo as well. Buckley adds she seeks to improve on engaging more with her instrument. 

Buckley relates that, “I need to stay more calm, because I get really nervous with first comps. But it was fine like I get nervous for nothing! So I feel like I need to get better with my nerves and stuff.”

In the next up and coming weeks, they have more traveling and bigger competitions to look forward to. So after getting their ‘taste of L.A,’ they know exactly what to work on and overall found the positives from their experience at Los Osos.

For Mendoza, “Individually I feel as if I did significantly better than Clovis [show]. I was able to adjust better, I was able to listen more, and it was way better.” He hopes to continue on improving his ability to engage with the music and his instrument, along with actually performing and getting involved with the music and just straight playing it. “At that specific comp, I felt the standards weren’t met. But I think now we have a better understanding and idea of it, we know how to approach them further on.”

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