Week at a Glance

• Monday: Drum Major Clinic • 3:45pm – 6:00pm
  • Gold Winter Guard • 4:30pm – 7:30pm
• Tuesday: Drum Major Clinic • 3:45pm – 6:00pm
  • Silver Winter Guard • 4:30pm – 7:30pm
• Wednesday: Drum Major Clinic • 3:45pm – 6:00pm
• Thursday: Gold Winter Guard • 4:00pm – 7:00pm
  • Silver Winter Guard • 6:00pm – 9:00pm
• Friday: Silver Winter Guard • 4:00pm – 5:15pm
  • Gold Winter Guard • 5:30pm – 7:00pm
• Saturday: Winter Guard SAPA Championships at Buford Arena
  • Performance Times TBA • According to Logistics Schedule Daft:
  • Silver will perform between 2:39pm and 4:27pm
  • Gold will perform between 8:12pm and 8:57pm

LGPE – WOW!

Last year we were days away from performing at LGPE when the pandemic caused us to begin at home learning and cancel the remainder of our performance calendar making this year’s LGPE concert a more special milestone. Our school year began with us rehearsing outside only and even once we moved indoors we have maintained six feet distances between all performers, increasing demands on musicians and complicating our preparations. Tonight, I proudly report that our students have overcome the immense obstacles and continued to be successful. This will forever be a Large Group Performance Evaluation to remember! During typical years it is required for bands to prepare 3 selections, 2 of which are chosen from a prescribed list, and a sight-reading assessment. Understanding the situations, GMEA allowed for bands to only prepare 2 selections with only 1 chosen from the prescribed list. Having faith in our students ability to overcome we chose to continue challenging our students and prepared 3 selections with each ensemble as normal. We are so glad that we made that decision.

The last time that our Concert Band attended LGPE they received Good and Excellent ratings and this year, under the direction of our student teacher Kylie Hamilton, they received Excellent and Superior ratings! They have demonstrated remarkable growth and performed a wonderful concert for LGPE. The opened the concert with a fun circus march by Karl King, Coast Guards March, performed a beautiful lyrical piece by Brian Balmages, Rippling Watercolors, and ended with an exciting work by Scott Watson, Terracotta Warriors.

Last year was supposed to be Mr. Nelson’s LGPE debut with our Symphonic Band, but due to COVID he made his debut this year. Again, these students have demonstrated increased maturity as they prepared a challenging program for festival. An exhilarating Spanish march, Amparito Roca by Aubrey Winter opened the program followed by Tyler Grant’s beautiful Resplendent Light, and closed the concert with Jan Van der Roost’s Flashing Winds. Symphonic Band’s performance was awarded straight Superior ratings by the judges.

Wind Ensemble was given the honor of concluding the LGPE festival on Friday evening and performed a program that encapsulates the previous year. Black Granite by James Hosay was written to commemorate the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC and is a march full of courage and bravery. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Elliot Del Borgo used Dylan Thomas’s poem by the same name as inspiration for the tone painting within the composition and was commissioned by a high school band whose members were mourning the loss of three of 3 fellow band members who died in a car accident. The poem pleads “Do not go gentle into that good night, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.’’ And the final selection, Parkour, by Samuel Hazo was inspired by the art of parkour, which is a form of walking/transportation through which people complete complicated maneuvers with seeming ease. Although things have not been easy this year, our students have adapted and oftentimes make it look easy. Our students’ resilience is inspiring! I am excited for our future. Wind Ensemble also received straight Superior ratings from the judges — actually out of all captions they only received 1 B for “Balance,” and considering Mr. Hazo wrote extremely loud dynamics for the percussionists in Parkour, I’ll take it.

VERY PROUD OF ALL OF OUR BANDS! Go Trojans!!

Leadership Auditions

Drum Major Clinics begin in person tomorrow. All students should already be in the Google Classroom and have begun working on conducting exercises. In person leadership clinics begin next week.

• Drum Majors Only: March 22 – 24 • 3:45pm – 6:00pm
• All Leadership Including Drum Majors: March 29 – April 1 • 3:45pm – 6:00pm
• 2021 Leadership Audition Classroom Code: 5kurlck
• 2021 Drum Major Audition Classroom Code: 6u4d7dn

Winter Guard

Our winter guard competed again Saturday in the SAPA circuit at Alpharetta HS. This upcoming Saturday, March 27, our guards finish their season at SAPA Championships hosted at the Buford HS Arena. Please help me to congratulate them on a successful season! We are proud of the work that they continue to put in to bring the shows to life. I look forward to cheering them on in Championship performance on Saturday!

Fundraising Events

We have three major fundraising events in the works and are looking for volunteers to help with all aspects of each event. These events will help us earn money for the boosters day to day operations and will also help raise money for the purchase of new marching uniforms.

The events that we need volunteers for are the Trojan Band March 5k in April, the annual Band BBQ in May, and our CHS Scramble golf tournament the first Friday of June. If you are interested in helping with any of these events, please contact Shannon Waldroup at slwaldroup2001@yahoo.com or you can visit the links below to sign-up.

Trojan Band March 5K and Fun Run

Yes! You can still sign up for the 5K. The deadline to guarantee a shirt however has passed. If you sign-up for the “shirt” only option from this point on, your shirt may be slightly delayed but will be delivered. If you already signed up, then nothing to worry about. Thank you so much for your support!

We need more volunteers. Please sign up to help out: Volunteer for the 5K. Also, it would be a huge help if you would please continue to share the following information on all of your social media accounts:

To sign up for the 5K as a participant or to purchase a shirt: https://runsignup.com/Race/Ga/trojanband5k?remMeAttempt=

Share the QR Code, Share the Link, and Share the Flyer. Thank you so much for helping make sure that our community is aware of this wonderful opportunity to support our students!

BBQ • May 6, 2021

BBQ packets will be coming home soon! We ask each student to sell their allotted tickets. This will include the tickets that we ask each student to sell as well as tickets for the raffle this day. Tickets are $8 for a single or $12 for a double. The single ticket is for a BBQ sandwich, chips, dessert and drink. The double includes two sandwiches. Each packet includes 25 single tickets and 5 double tickets.

Each packet will also include 20 raffle tickets. The raffle will be held immediately after the performance at the end of the event. We are asking our booster members if any of you would like to donate a prize for us to use? If so, contact Jennifer Carden at jenn.chsbandbooster@gmail.com. The raffle tickets will be sold for $5 each.

We are also looking for volunteers for this event. Please sign up (Volunteer for the BBQ) as soon as you can.

This year we will host the inaugural CHS Scramble, Golf Tournament. It will be held at Oak Mountain Golf Course on Friday, June 4th. We are looking for a parent or group of parents who are interested in helping plan, secure sponsorships, and volunteering the day of the event. Also, please sign up to Volunteer for the Golf Tournament as soon as possible and someone will contact you soon.

Upcoming Dates

Below is a list of some upcoming events, please refer to our calendar on chstrojanband.com for a more complete overview of our upcoming rehearsals and events.

• 3.27 Gold and Silver Winter Guard Performance at Championships at Buford HS
• 4.5 – 9 Spring Break – No School
• 4.15 CHS Honors Night
• 4.16 Senior Breakfast
• 4.17 Prom
• 4.20 ****DATE CHANGE***** Since Honor’s Night is on 4/15 (when auditions were originally scheduled) we have moved auditions to April 20.
• 4.26 ****DATE CHANGE AGAIN**** I know that we announced a date change, but it has changed back. We have received approval to host the Band Banquet at the MAC with all students present. The event will be an awards ceremony only without food and will start at 7:00PM. Masks are required and we ask that parents socially distance throughout the auditorium.
• 4.26, 4.27, 4.29, 4.30 Fall Color Guard Audition Camp

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