It’s an Honor to be in Honor Band
March 12, 2020
The Honor Band took part in a concert at CU Boulder from February 27th to 29th. The experience was both fun and adventurous for many of MSHS’s own students like Devin Rocha (11) and Hailey Matas (12), who both made first chair in the top band.
The task of auditioning to get into an honor band is a challenge that has students showing their worth. The process of getting into an honor band depends on which band one wants to take part in. Auditions take place early on in the school year and the music consists entirely of All-State material, the hardest audition music that they are presented within the school year, which helps to prepare the students for the All-State auditions. The music makes it a challenge, but the students are willing to put in the effort to make things happen. Pueblo Honor Band was slightly different, it was director recommended, which means that the directors choose who they think are worthy participants.
Taylor Weimer was the man in charge of these great and amazing performers in the Honor Band. “[The Honor Bands] can be pretty grueling. The Pueblo one is three days and they’re overnight trips. They pretty much have the students working from the early morning, until late at night. We were getting back to the hotel at around nine o’clock and we would wake up at around six, and just do it all over again the next day,” said Weimer, the Music Director, about how long the Honor Band trips take. The main reason it’s so early in the morning is because they don’t get to see the music played in concert until that certain date. “It’s basically like putting together a full concert in only the time span of two or three days,” Weimer said. As shown, a lot of time and effort is put into the Honor Band, and all the students are dedicated and motivated to make their mark.
Weimer believes that Honor Band has a really good impact on his students. Weimer said, “I think some students who haven’t had any leadership experience before attained that experience doing some of this stuff.” In these competitions, the Honor Band gets to see the college-level bands play, how things look and operate and what they might want to aim for in their own goals. Weimer believes that this was a great experience for the kids to learn from.
Truly, in the end, being in Honor Band is a bigger achievement than most have given credit for, and it’s not an easy goal to achieve. Hopefully, moving forward, these musicians will achieve their goals in the long run and that they have a great future with music.
