A Wrap-Up for the Winter Season of Marching Band

By Angelina G.

The Winter Percussion and Winter Guard season recently ended on a high note with both groups placing third at their individual state competitions. Winter Guard moved up a division from the one they were in last year. 

Winter Guard’s show was themed around a garden with props that resembled walls of a greenhouse. Flowery vines flowed down the clear walls that surrounded the main focus area of the show: a small area with four benches. Some members of the guard wore gray clothes so they resembled statues while other dancers wore layered white dresses and suits. 

Jeremy Orsini, current Fall and Winter Guard director, discloses that their floral show was conceptualized across the past few years by Katt Craig, assistant director of color guard and a Mountain Range alumni, explaining that, “her concept was a girl in a greenhouse that meets an angel.” He emphasized a major inspiration being the movie The Secret Garden. Jeremy also adds,  “The music was selected out of spite; we told Katt she could not use Billie Elish since she wrote EVERYTHING using her music. She then chose a song by her brother.” Katt will be stepping down this year as the assistant guard director.

While the show appeared very polished, the guard still experienced a major problem that Jeremy described as the “hardest thing we combated this season”, being attendance. Several members had to be cut from the show because they barely showed up, and Jeremy articulated “it is difficult to do a team sport without the whole team.”

Winter Percussion’s show was centered around a tarot card reading that determined the main actor’s fate. Three cards were drawn, one saying tower , one saying death, and one saying the empress. The ensemble bore black outfits that were draped in a silky green scarf. The ensemble also had eyes painted onto their faces and pink caps, and the tarp they marched on was a mixture of lime green and deep purple hues. Vic Stauffenberg, Mountain Range’s percussion director, explains that although these tarps can often reach prices over 2600 dollars, he managed to find the tarp used this year from another band for only ⅕ of the price, saving the group a significant amount of money that was used for other things such as costume design and props. 

Vic explains the process he goes through when deciding a show theme as “We have, as a staff, an active brainstorming session each year when we are determining our show concept.” He also noted that the tarp they purchased for a discount played a significant part in deciding the theme as they wanted a show based on the tarp's unique design.

While many of the difficulties in the season involve keeping students engaged, recruiting students can be the hardest part. Vic begins gradually recruiting students later in the marching band season(around September-October) by promoting the after school percussion club that takes place Mondays in the season, which is a nice intro into a new instrument. Vic notes “Winter Percussion is open to any student”, and regardless of if you play an instrument or not, all are welcome in Winter Percussion.

Both directors of their respective sports are satisfied with the season’s wrap-up and both are especially content with their placements at their individual state competitions. Regardless of difficulties Winter Guard and Winter Percussion managed to persevere and definitely earned their placement.