NRHS Marching Band: Celebrating successes and facing uncertainties

 

 

By EVA HANEGRAAFF

NORTH READING — While many remember the big senior night football game against Amesbury last Friday, few realized that it was also senior night for North Reading High School’s marching band.

The band put on their competition show during halftime with a theme based on the mythological King Midas and his golden touch. Senior drum major Raffi Toby describes the story by saying, “initially, he is fascinated by it [the golden touch] and then eventually he learns how dangerous it is and it makes him go insane.”   

The song choice was just as engaging as the visuals, as Toby explains, “some of the music is a bit more classical with a rock and roll twist.” The show’s slow ballad features “Golden Slumbers” by the Beatles and their closing song is “Cashmere” by Led Zeppelin. “Every little detail they add has some sort of presence in the story even if the judges don’t pick up on it,” adds senior drum major Nathan Burt. “It all has a meaning.”

The band competes in two different competition circuits through the course of their competition season. There is the MICCA circuit, which stands for the Massachusetts Instrumental and Choral Conductors Association, and the NESBA circuit, which stands for the New England Scholastic Band Association.

The primary difference between these two circuits is the way in which they score competitions. The MICCA competition uses a star system in which the band is rated from one to five stars in a variety of categories and then given a star rating overall, “which is dumb” Toby declares. The NESBA competition, on the other hand, gives bands a score out of 100, up to 3 decimal points, that is broken down into many categories with five or six judges, each responsible for one score in which they specialize.

 

 

WIN 1st PLACE AT NESBA

So far, the band has had their most successful season yet, winning first place at their first competition of the season, a NESBA competition in North Andover. “We got first place in our division out of three bands. We also took home a tied place in music performance but we got best visual,” Burt explained. At their home competition in the MICCA circuit, they earned a four-star performance overall, however they earned five stars in music. “It’s like nothing we’ve ever done before in terms of the talent and the potential that we have,” explains Luke Berkley, the band’s woodwind section leader.

The two senior drum majors attribute a variety of reasons to the band’s success. “The story definitely helps but it’s up to the amazing musicians we have in the group this year. They all have stepped up big time and they all are doing the right things,” Burt says. Berkley describes his experience competing with this group this season as “just being a giant family, it’s just a really wonderful experience.”

Within the band, there are numerous leadership positions that are all responsible for different aspects of the show as a whole. There are the drum majors, who include Toby and Burt, both seniors, as well as Calvin Fisher, a junior. Toby explains that Ben Owens, their band director, “says you’re kind of like the president or captain of the band so you’re kind of like the face of the program in a lot of ways.” Their responsibilities within the band also include conducting on the podium during shows, helping run rehearsals, and providing communication between Owens and the rest of the band. “We’re also kind of there as a leadership figure and something for people to look up to,” Toby adds.

Some of their responsibilities are slightly untraditional as well. “If you’re Nate, you fix stuff,” Toby says. When asked about any examples that come to mind, Toby asked the rhetorical question: “What hasn’t he fixed?” while Burt responded: “What haven’t I fixed?” at the same time.

Along with the drum majors, there are a variety of other positions including section leaders, function managers that deal with equipment, uniform managers, librarians that take care of music, historians that handle social media, and a design team that puts the show together. “Our leadership team is mostly seniors and juniors and upperclassmen,” Burt explains.

Berkley highlighted the structure of section leaders. “There’s typically one senior section leader and one junior so the senior can kind of teach the junior how to do it,” he said. His responsibilities include “maintaining a good environment and a good culture with the woodwinds, and making sure that they’re on top of their stuff.” Berkley explains the challenges that accompany this responsibility by explaining, “band is not like basketball or football. If there’s someone who’s not good, you can’t bench them,” adding, “everyone who’s in band performs, whether they’re an incredibly talented musician or senior, or they’re a new rookie or a freshman, you know, so the challenge comes in trying to help people of completely different skill levels.”

Getting to this successful point was not without struggle for the NRHS marching band, as Toby points out. “When we were freshman the band was probably like 35 people. We had old, really ugly uniforms, and the show we did was, at the time, pretty cool but if I watch it now it’s really bad,” he recalls. Back then the marching band was consistently placing last in competitions, yet they persisted. “We got new uniforms the next year and the content and the quality of the show we put on just keeps getting better every year which is attributed to the staff we have and then also the quality of students that come through the high school,” Toby believes.

They consistently improved their rank each year, reaching their peak at the beginning of this season with their first-place win. Their determination was a major reason for this, as Toby puts it, “even when we weren’t the best band, people enjoyed being there and had fun doing it which is why people stuck with it even through more difficult times.”

Now, it is hard to imagine the band program where it was just seven years ago. “Over the last couple of years, we went from a 20-person band that got participation trophies to a 70-person band that got first place on our NESBA qualifying round,” explains Berkley. The program has grown by more than three times in less than a decade. “It’s all Mr. Owens. He’s put together a very successful program,” Burt asserts.

TWO COMPETITIONS THIS WEEKEND

With all they have accomplished, the North Reading High School marching band is not stopping here. “We’re going to keep pushing. We have three weeks left in our season. This is the part where we keep on working on our show and we keep on making every little detail matter,” Burt states. On Saturday, October 26, they are competing in a NESBA show at Wakefield Memorial High School and the following day, October 27; they compete in the MICCA finals in Quincy.

When asked about his hopes and predictions for these competitions Burt remarks, “Scores don’t matter for us. It’s honestly about the feeling you get when you come off the field but a first-place victory would be nice.” He adds, “A trophy would be pretty cool.”

To all three of these bandleaders, their love for band all seems to stem from a similar place. “I wouldn’t have stuck with band if it wasn’t for the people I was doing it with, which sounds a bit cliché,” Toby explains. He goes on to say, “I think marching band is the friends being made and the relationships that you form.”  On a similar note, Berkley said, “I think my favorite part about band has been the people.” He rightly adds, “I’m sure Raffi or Nate said something very similar to that, because it’s much more than just a big group of people who like music, it’s a big group of people that genuinely enjoy being around each other and are becoming more and more emotionally connected with each other every rehearsal.”

AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

While all three would love to remain optimistic about the future, nothing is certain. “There’ve been a lot of questions because of the failed budget override,” Toby explains. He adds, “Like genuinely, we don’t know what’s going to happen. Mr. Owens doesn’t know. We’re hoping that it’ll exist in some capacity.” Burt carries a similar sentiment in saying, “we’re going into next year thinking that there will be a program but we’re also fighting as hard as we can this year to make sure that it’s the best year that we can have.”

This would not be the first time the band program has been cut, and due to the override not passing, this is a very real concern. Many members are aware of this potential outcome, however they have channeled it in a constructive way. “There’s a lot of drive stemming from the uncertainty that this might be the last show we have for some time and I think that’s definitely motivating people to make it the best one,” Toby explains.

He goes on to advise, “people can help by realizing not every school is lucky enough to have the opportunity to have a marching band or music program and whenever possible they should be supportive and try and be grateful for it because it’s a pretty rare opportunity.”

Berkley sums up this unique, successful, incredibly at-risk group in saying, “this is so much more than just a band; it’s like a family.”

NRHS senior Eva Hanegraaff is a student intern at the Transcript for the 2024-25 school year. She wants to use her internship to learn about the field of journalism and bring a high school voice to the Transcript. Contact her at evahanegraaff@gmail.com with any article ideas or tips.