The CBA Regional Band Festival was held at Palmer Ridge High School on Thursday, March 8, 2012. The LPHS Symphonic Band and Wind Symphony both performed and scored well.

The first thing to do in preparation for the festival is to select music. This can sometimes be a difficult task, and time goes by quickly. With only two months before the festival, band director Kevin Whitelaw must pick music he feels the band will be ready to perform perfectly.

“I select music according to the ability of the band and the individual members that are in it because solos may be played,” Whitelaw.

The festival itself is pretty simple to understand. Each band gets thirty minutes to practice and warm-up, which includes tuning their instruments, running through tough parts in the pieces and breathing to help calm nerves.

Then it’s show time. The band is led to the stage, where the hot lights and the darkened audience that doesn’t make a sound as they wait for the first notes to be played make them become even more nervous.

The announcer introduces the band and Mr. Whitelaw takes the podium. He raises his baton, and the band raises their instruments simultaneously. They wait… all eyes are on him to begin. The audience is silent…the anticipation grows.

The waiting is over, and the band begins to play the music they rehearsed for months. Playing the music doesn’t take that long, but to the members it seems an eternity.

The band is scored by three judges. The scoring ranges one through fivc, with one being the highest as superior, and five being the lowest as terrible.

To get a one, the band must get a score between twelve and seventeen in the different categories. To receive a two, the band must get a score between eighteen and twenty-eight. A score of three is a twenty-nine through forty-three; a score of four is a forty-four through a fifty-four; and a score of five is a fifty-five and above.

The Symphonic Band received two twos and one three, with scores of twenty-one, twenty-two and a thirty-four. The Wind Symphony received three ones, with scores of thirteen, seventeen and seventeen.

After the band performs, they go into a separate room with a different director. The director listens to them during their performance, and he advises the band on what they can improve.

The hard work is finished, and now it is time to listen to the other bands perform. After the band puts away their instruments, they sit in the auditorium and listen to the other bands. They must listen to a minimum of two bands in order to leave the festival.

“The hardest thing about preparing for a festival is the preparation,” Whitelaw said.

After the festival, the band directors receive three disks with the judges’ recorded comments on them. The bands listens to the disks and then plays through the music one last time, unless they make it to state, in which case they will continue rehearsing the music.

The festival is meant to help the bands to get better through the different styles of directing and different directors hearing the bands play and giving their opinions. Most times this is exactly what a band needs in order to do better at their next festival.