The band hall bustled with excitement as students prepared for the annual band solo contest on Saturday, March 30. After the preliminary round, three students from each instrument section moved on to the semi-final round, which took place that afternoon.

“Overall I feel prepared, but I’m a bit nervous. I can’t wait to have a great performance,” Shiying Su ‘22 said. “I think having a solo contest is a good idea because it gives everyone an opportunity to perform.”

The preliminary round took place from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., with a lunch break in the middle. After this, the semi-finals round started at 4:00 p.m. A google sheets was sent out to record the score ratings, which aligned with UIL ratings, using the numbers one to five to indicate how well students performed. Each student also received comments from the judges the following Monday during their band blocks.

“I was really looking forward to getting my comments back to see what I could improve on for next year,” Siri Vangati ‘22 said. “Having a solo contest pushes everyone to practice and have the experience of performing, which is really nice. Getting feedback also allows us to improve on our solos and get better in the future.”

After the preliminary round, the judge’s decisions on who moved on to semi-finals were updated on the google forms. Three judges evaluated the semi-finalists and one musician from each section was chosen for finals. A list of finalists was sent to parent and student emails to celebrate the students’ achievements.

“I feel like the contest went well. The students so far have been doing really well,” Associate Director Mrs. Brittany Dacy said. “The feedback has been really good and I proud of them. It’s very musical and mostly well prepared, so I’m really excited about that. We want to add a chamber room for next year to let the kids do some chamber ensembles, so that’s on the horizon, either today or a seperate contest.”

The solo contest finals recital will take place on Tuesday, April 9 at 7:00 p.m. and is open to everyone to watch. The winners of the final round will get to perform at the Spring Concert on Tuesday, May 14.

Students who advanced to finals:

Percussion: Chinmaya Andukuri ‘19, Eric Li ‘19, and Adam Perry ‘19

Clarinet: Erin Xu ‘21

Trumpet: Muhozi Nintunze ‘19

Flute: Cassidy Lee ‘21

Oboe: Isabel Grudowski ‘19

Horn: Cordell Foulk ‘19

Alto Saxophone: Edison Block ‘19, Madison Metzger ‘20, Sho Humphries ‘21

Trombone: Aaron Slack ‘21