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Three local high school bands take top division honors

Northside Christian, Seminole and East Lake high school musicians had winning performances Saturday .

By ANNE LINDBERG AND MELANIE AVE
Published November 22, 2006

Northside Christian High School's marching band relied on popular tunes from 1971 interspersed with gospel.

Seminole High School's marching band took its cue from swans, Tchaikovsky and other classical music.

East Lake High School's marching band covered the field in tarpaulin painted black and blue.

And all three won state titles in their divisions Saturday during the Florida Marching Band Tournament at Tropicana Field.

Pinellas schools took top spots in three of the five divisions, and Largo and Countryside High placed in the top five in a fourth division.

Was the Pinellas sweep mere coincidence or does the county have some sort of secret training tool?

The answer depends on whom you ask.

Seminole High Warhawk band director Dan Wood attributes the success to three factors: teaching; commitment by students, parents, schools and the community; and tradition that has resulted in stable, long-term band programs.

"In Pinellas County, there've been many long lines of tradition," he said.

Jay Emmert, director of the East Lake Eagle band, said the secret is the friendly competition among local high schools.

"We push each other to be better each year," Emmert said. "It is all about comparing ourselves with one another."

Nathan Farrell, director of the Royal Ambassadors marching band at Northside, said a change in rules also helped.

Before this year, he said, the bands competed in their divisions until the finals, when they were all thrown together. That put smaller bands, like Northside's, at a disadvantage. But this year, the tournament held finals in each division, which gave each school a better chance.

For Jon Kersten, executive director of the Florida Marching Band Tournament, the answer is simple: "It's coincidence."

The schools have good band programs, he said, but so do the other schools across the state. And it's not just the ultimate winners that should be used to judge what happened. It's the 25 finalists that came from all over the state.

"Those top five in each class are the winners, not just the one on top," Kersten said.

All of those, he said, worked hard to get to the finals. The competition began in September with 265 bands. Thirty-three competitions later, the field had been narrowed to 80 bands. Then, the final 25, which were divided into five divisions of five bands each.

To get there, kids had to do a lot of work. The East Lake band members, for example, practiced for three hours every Tuesday and Thursday and at least eight hours every Saturday.

They also raised $80,000 to pay expenses, including a designer who was hired to choreograph their show, "Celestial Journey." The show musically took viewers from sunset to sunrise. It was performed on a tarp that covered most of the field. The tarp was painted black and blue to resemble the night sky with stars, comets and lines of latitude and longitude.

Northside band members pay $1,000 in band fees in addition to tuition to the private school, which is in the unincorporated Lealman area. Those kids, too, worked for hours each week practicing and holding spaghetti suppers and carwashes to raise money.

Their show celebrated the school's 35th anniversary with such songs as American Pie, Jesus Is Just All Right with Me and others infused with gospel.

Seminole has an annual budget of slightly more than $100,000 for all its music programs. That's raised by the kids, parents, private donations and a band competition, which accounts for most of the money raised.

The band's winning show was Le Cygne, or the Swan, and relied heavily on such classical composers as Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saens.

[Last modified November 22, 2006, 06:43:28]