The University High School marching band has been off to a fabulous start of the season. The marching band has spent nearly 320 hours working on making themselves better since May of last year. Due to this amount of practice, the marching band was able to earn first place at  FMBC (Florida Marching Band Championship) and earned a qualifying spot in their final competition with ease. 

The Marching Band had lost 10 practice sessions, a show canceled out because of Hurricane Ian, and the makeup show canceled by Hurricane Nicole. Regardless of this, the marching band came into the competition confident and prepared. “ Everyone’s attitude the rest of the day was a sort of quiet, focused expectancy. You could tell the kids knew they could win, and they were not going to let anything distract them from that,” said Director Johnathan Brown.

The semi final and finals were held in Fort Lauderdale. The team was unfortunately not off to a great start, but they managed to get back into a better rhythm and ended earning first place in that round with 90.6. This is the third highest score that the UHS marching band has ever produced in their history. “We had worked hard preparing for the competition in the summer by practicing on the weekdays and the weekends. I am glad we were able to practice so much so that we can perform the best that we could, leaving everything we could on the field,” said junior Krystal Sanchez.

Sadly, in the finals there was a technical issue that made their overall performance score lower than their previous round. “ I think we played the best we could but the judges were not as lenient with their scores,” said Sanchez.

Previously, the marching band has never even made the state finals, but now they are currently aiming to win the whole competition.” Just four years ago, this band had never even made State Finals, and now we are disappointed when we don’t win State Finals,” said Mr Brown.

Now that the marching band season is over, band members are able to rest from the hectic season and practice that occurs every day. As for the second semester, the Music Performance Assessment in the Spring and solo & ensembles in February, are quickly approaching.