DENVER — Colorado’s competitive high school marching bands are getting ready to take the field for another year of competition. Despite the triple digit temperatures and smokey conditions from the wildfires, pre-season summer band camps recently took place at high school practice fields across the state. The two-week camps are where students learn the basics of marching, learning drill to their show, and playing their instruments for their upcoming competitive season.
“Its eight-to-four every single day for two straight weeks,” said Benjamin Corneliusen, Director of Bands at Eaton High School, “They’re out here sweating it out in the middle of the hot summer season and just giving it their all.”
The band camps are held in the heat of the summer starting the last week of July and the first weeks of August. Band members do calisthenics, run, and get in shape so they can learn to perform about an eight-minute show. A show they’ll perform while marching, running, playing their instruments and spinning flags.
“It’s very difficult especially for people who are just learning and understanding what marching band is,” said Lilly Gustafson, Ralston Valley High School sophomore. “You have to have a certain motion to it and multi-tasking with your playing and understanding angles and how to make a good sound while you’re running around on the field. It’s a lot of work.”
After camps, it’s rehearsals before, during and after school to perfect their shows. In high school, the weekend competitions begin in September where marching bands compete against each other, culminating into the Colorado Bandmaster’s Association (CBA) state championships in late fall.
“We run about 95 competitive programs through our sanctioned shows each season,” said CBA Marching Affairs Director, Rick Shaw. “Our main focus in CBA is that it’s student oriented. Everything we do is related to building better kids through better programs.”
CBA started in the late 1960’s and promotes music education through band participation and performances like marching band competitions. Shaw believes the physicality of today’s marching bands are building better students.
“The leadership, the dedication, the discipline that it takes is very much like what takes place on the athletic fields,” Shaw said. “Those kids who are out there are giving 100 percent or more and (are) more than excited to perform for the audience.”
According to Shaw, the first competitive CBA marching band competition was held in 1975 at Westminster High School. In 1980, the first state high school marching band championship was held at what was then Thornton High School. Last year’s championship finals competition was cancelled due to weather, but final scores were based off semi-finals placements. Horizon High School placed 8th in 5A competition, their first time making finals in their program’s history.
“We barely squeezed in. It was by a point zero five,” said Tim Dailey, Director of Bands for Horizon High School. “As a director, it’s always been a dream to get into finals and now we go, ‘Cool, we want to stay here, we want this to be our home and the expectation of excellence on being that finals performance.”
Monarch High School’s marching band has made the 4A championship finals placing in the top five spots the past 10 years under the leadership of Band Director Chuck Stephen. He believes the makings of a highly competitive marching band start at band camp.
“If you’re a championship band, you start that mantra from the second you see those kids,” Stephen said. “You’re putting in all this hard work now to pay off in three months and I think it’s a huge lesson for kids.”
The camps also give students a chance to bond and for incoming freshman, it’s a chance to make new friends before the first class in high school begins.
“Anything we can do to make it less scary is great,” said Kelly Watts, Head Instrumental Teacher at Ralston Valley High School. “When our freshmen start high school, they’re already going to have a group of friends, they’re already going to know upper classmen, [and] they’re already going to be able to have a community.”
For these marching members, band camp is a way to prepare to get back on the field for competition, performing a show that most people will only see at halftime on Friday nights.
“Each year, the excellence level gets a little bit higher and higher,” Stephen said. “If we leave it all out on the field, then we have no regrets whatsoever.”
>This story is part of 9NEWS' "Hearts of Champions: Marching across Colorado" series, where we're highlighting marching bands across the state. Watch our stories throughout the day on Fridays through the middle of September. Share your photos and memories with us using #Bandon9.