A Many-sided Spectacle

The logistics could be overwhelming for some people. Where to park 48 buses, 11 semis, 37 trailers and trucks, eight converter buses (old school buses that have been redesigned to haul band equipment), and over 400 cars? Where to put 4500 visitors? But for Charles Stewart, the band director at Ballard High School, it's all in a day's work. A day's work that takes a year of planning. On September 27, Ballard hosted the Bruin Invitational Marching Band Contest, the preliminaries and finals in the Mid-States Championship held in Ohio in November. For the past three seasons, this prestigious competition has included bands from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. "We couldn't do this without the help of many parents, other volunteers and our sponsors," says Stewart. "The executive board oversees the purchasing of the food, preparation of the food, chaperones, running errands, parking cars--everything. All of their help allows our staff to focus on instruction and education of students." This year, nineteen bands, including approximately 1900 performers, executed routines for a panel of certified judges from the Central State Judges Association. The panel also included judges from Minnesota and Florida. Students are evaluated on their execution and musical skills. "Execution includes everybody's feet looking the same and their upper bodies in sync. Part of the musical skills they judge is the dynamic contrast," says Frances Lotz, a student teacher from Morehead State University who is working with Stewart this semester. "The dynamic contrast includes playing super loud and super soft. This makes the music more dramatic," Stewart explains. The competition is a chance for the groups to learn and support each other, according to Stewart. "This is a customer-service opportunity. Everybody cheers everybody," he says. "It provides the bands with an opportunity to learn. The judges give feedback. There are judges for the visual aspect, the music judges, color guard judges and percussion judges." "This competition is a good indicator for how the students will perform at the Mid-States Championship that's held in Beaver Creek, Ohio in November," Stewart adds. The morning competition is the preliminaries and includes all the bands. During this part of the event, the bands are grouped by size. According to Jay Matheney, another member of Ballard's music department, there is tremendous diversity in the sizes of the bands. "Elizabethtown [KY] has 37 members and Beaver Creek, Ohio has the most with 215." The final competition at night is an open competition [all sizes] and consists of the top ten bands. For the third year, Bourbon County was the winner. "They're a band of fifty-some members," Matheney says. Ballard did not participate in the competition, but performed an exhibition routine called "Rock Star." "This style was totally unlike what we usually do," Stewart says. The numbers included "Carry On, Wayward Son," by Kansas; "Moon Dance," an old jazz swing chart by Van Morrison; and "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath. Another highlight of the evening was a performance by the Morehead State University marching band. "They were supposed to perform after the preliminaries, but because of a football scheduling conflict, they played after the finals," Stewart says. "It really worked out better and they were fantastic. Next year we might consider bringing in two exhibition groups." What's a few more busses and cars when it's all about the spectacle.