The Chilhowie Band has a new website! With Smyth County schools wanting to move over totally to Google, the Weebly site will be shut down. An updated version of the site containing the past three years' blog posts will be available on the new Google Site!
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As we near the end of the school year, preparations for the band's marching season are already underway! Students' leadership and drum major application forms are due tomorrow and drum major and drum line practices have begun!
Drum Major practice dates are: Tuesday, April 16th; Tuesday, April 23rd; Thursday, April 25th; and Tuesday, April 30th. All practices will last from 3:45 to 5:30 pm. Drum Major Try-Outs will be on Tuesday, May 7th, 2019. Drum line practice dates are: Tuesday, April 16th; Thursday, April 25th, Thursday, May 2nd; and Tuesday, May 7th. All practices will be from 3:45 to 5:30 pm. Drum line try-outs will be on Thursday, May 9th, 2019. Attire for all try-outs is a band shirt and khakis!  Last Tuesday night, the Chilhowie band loaded up a bus and headed north to Chicago, Illinois! They drove overnight to arrive in Chicago in the morning. On Wednesday, they saw the hit Broadway play, Hamilton and took a bus tour of the city. Over the course of the next three days, they visited Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum, Millennium Park, the Magnificent Mile, and Navy Pier, guided by their awesome tour guide, Thomas. They saw the Blue Man Group and a Cub's game a Wrigley Field, as well! They drove home all day on Sunday, arriving back in Chilhowie Sunday evening. Everyone had so much fun on the trip, as there was something for everyone to enjoy. However, after running around Chicago for five days, everyone was tired and happy to be home.
 Wednesday afternoon, the Chilhowie High School band went to concert assessment with hopes of qualifying for Honor Band status once again. After earning an overall rating of Superior, or a 1, at marching assessment in the fall, they were one performance away from their goal. This year, the band took a grade 4/5 split, meaning they took both grade 4 and grade 5 pieces, to concert assessment. They played well-known classics, such as John Phillip Sousa's The Thunderer and the second and third movements of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Folk Song Suite, along with the less-known piece, Echoes of the Silent.
The band performed at Virginia High School at 4:00 before a panel of four judges. After playing their prepared pieces, the band went on to sight reading, where they were given seven minutes to look at a piece before playing it for a judge. Scores were posted soon after, showing that the band had gotten a perfect score of straight 1's! The band is now officially an Honor Band for the second year since Mr. Green has been here, and the seventh time in school history! Mr. Green is so very proud of the students accomplishments! The students have worked so very hard this year and all of their hard work has paid off. The students have wanted to be the best they could be all season. This year as a whole will go down as one of the best years Chilhowie High School has ever had! This weekend was the All District Band event at the Higher Ed Center in Abingdon. All District is made up of four bands, Senior Symphonic, Senior Concert, Junior Symphonic, and Junior Concert. The Senior groups are composed of high school students from 9th to 12th grade. The Junior groups are made up of students between 7th and 9th grade. In both Senior and Junior, the Symphonic group contains all of the top players who auditioned. Students who do not make either group are labelled as "Alternates" to fill in if someone who made the band cannot come. This year, twenty-seven Chilhowie students made it, and twenty-four attended. The results at the end of auditions in December were:
Senior Symphonic: 9th Chair Flute - Julianna Blevins 4th Chair Clarinet - Emily Blevins 14th Chair Clarinet - Becca Martin 17th Chair Clarinet - Ryleigh Clukey 2 Chair Bass Clarinet - Rainni Crutchfield 7th Chair Trumpet - Ashlynn Booth 2nd Chair Euphonium - Alec Roberts 4th Chair Euphonium - Jackson Powers 6th Chair Tuba - Madison Garrett Senior Concert: 3rd Chair Flute - Graci Summey 9th Chair Flute - Heidi Adams 2nd Alt. Flute - Adriana Clukey 3rd Chair Clarinet - Kaitlyn Hopkins 2nd Chair Bass Clarinet - Wen Boswell-Bailey 1st Chair Tenor Sax - Kelly Wyatt 2nd Chair Trumpet - Matthew Cook 6th Chair Trumpet - Meghan Collins 7th Chair Trumpet - Cody Brogan 2nd Chair Horn - Emily Frye 6th Chair Horn - Kalix Singleton 7th Chair Horn - Hannah Greer 1st Alt. Horn - Sam Fox 6th Chair Trombone - Kat McAllister 3rd Chair Euphonium - Harper Adams Junior Concert: 18th Chair Clarinet - Emma Roland 3rd Chair Alto Sax - Brennan Anders 11th Chair Trumpet - Kellie Bentley 2nd Chair Trombone - Jacob Morrison 6th Chair Tuba - Grace Rose Three students also qualified for All State auditions: Emily Blevins, Rainni Crutchfield, and Alec Roberts! Friday saw everyone start the process of preparing for Saturday's concert; clinicians were introduced, pieces were handed out, and practice started. Each group worked extremely hard to work up all of the music. At the end of the day, Mr. Green and all of the Chilhowie students rode up to Bristol to eat at O'Charley's before heading to the Pinnacle and Just Jump. After the first long day of rehearsal and fun activities, everyone was tired but still ready to work to get everything performance ready! The concert opened with Junior Concert, followed by Junior Symphonic, then Senior Concert, and closed with Senior Symphonic. Mr. Green is so proud of how well all of the students did at auditions this year, and is excited to see how much more they will improve over the next year!
This past weekend, six Chilhowie High students were selected to attend the Virginia Tech Honor Band event. Emily Blevins, Ryleigh Clukey, Rainni Crutchfield, Alec Roberts, Jackson Powers, and Kat McAllister all rode up to audition for chair placement on Friday morning. There were four bands there to be placed in: Gold, the top group, and Silver, Maroon, and Orange, which were all equal. Emily and Rainni made Gold Band, and made sixth chair clarinet and first chair bass clarinet, respectively. Alec and Kat both made Silver band, at first chair euphonium and second chair trombone. In the Maroon band, Ryleigh made seventh chair clarinet and Jackson made fourth chair euphonium. The students represented Chilhowie High School so very well!
 The Chilhowie Band's marching season has finally ended! To recap the season, the band took their show, Seven Deadly Sins, to three competitions. The first competition was at Lonesome Pine, where the band took home their first grand championship of the season. The following weekend brought the George Wythe competition, where the band won their second grand championship over several larger groups. Week three brought the band to State Marching Assessment in the Southwest Community College gym, due to the rainy weather forecast. Despite the move indoors, the band earned an overall rating of 1, meaning that they are halfway to becoming a state honor band once again! After three competitions, two grand championships, three superior ratings, and numerous first place trophies, the band is excited to tackle the spring concert season.
With school now underway, the Chilhowie band will again be back to a regular practice schedule to prepare for the upcoming season. After going a few days without any scheduled practices over the last few days of summer, the band successfully ran the first two tunes of the show by the end of class Thursday afternoon. Everyone is excited for the new school year and marching season!
Monday practices will start August 13 and run throughout the school year from 6pm to 9pm. Mr. Green has one simple question for the band program this year, "How good do you want to be?". Mr. Green believes the sky is the limit for this group this year. We will just have to wait and see how good they will be.
Just as the school year was about to start, the Chilhowie Band was able to purchase a new drumline for their upcoming marching season. The Band would like to thank Direct Dodge for their sponsorship, Israel O'Quinn and Food City for their special contributions, and the community who supported the band through any fundraisers they have had or simply by buying food at the concession stand at football games.
The old drumline, which was approximately fifteen years old, has been replaced by an all new Pearl Championship Midnight Black edition line, consisting of two snares, four basses, and a tenor, along with cases, carriers, and stands. The entire band is excited for the upcoming season and the opportunities it brings, especially with the new and improved drumline!  The Chilhowie High School band recently ended their first two week long band camp with a successful performance of their first two tunes of the show for the parents. Having an extended time at camp brought both extra time to improve upon the show and new challenges for the students. Nonetheless, the time was well-spent, as the students worked hard every day in order to get two tunes on the field, marching and playing, and cleaned up the third tune musically. Of course, not every moment was spent hard at work; every day brought something new to laugh about and enjoy, whether it was an evening at the wavepool, boys in short shorts, or the infamous lip sync battle.
This year's show is titled Seven Deadly Sins, with each of the sins being represented individually through the different movements and by one of the color guard members. The music is harder than in years past, but makes up for it in its dark and intriguing sound, and the students in the band are all doing wonderfully with it. Come and see the Mighty Warrior Marching Band at their first performance, at the Marion game on August 24th! |
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