Published: September 24, 2008 02:21 pm         

Brownsburg and Avon host band competitions on Saturday

High school marching bands across the state spent this past summer practicing their routines in order to do well at the first of this year’s marching band competitions.

The Avon Marching Black and Gold is hosting the Avon Invitational marching band competition on Saturday. On the same day, Brownsburg High School will host its ninth annual Marching Invitational.

The Avon invitational, hosted at Avon High School, 7575 E. C.R. 150 S., is a day-long competition that features more than 20 high school marching bands from around the state.

Meijer is sponsoring the competition for the seventh year.

The competition begins at 10 a.m. and will feature an exhibition performance by the seven-time state champion Avon Marching Black and Gold.

The Brownsburg High School band will host its annual competition from 6 to 9:25 p.m. at the high school, 1000 S. Odell St., where 11 bands will compete from schools including Plainfield, Pike, Western Boone, and Tri-West. The Brownsburg High School band will be performing in exhibition at 9 p.m.

Trophies and souvenir programs are sponsored by Wal-mart and OrthoIndy West. Hendricks Regional Health is sponsoring this year’s competition.

Each school will also compete in the 36th annual Indiana State School Music Association Marching Band district festivals on Oct. 4 at seven Indiana sites — Concord/Elkhart, Fort Wayne Homestead, Lewis Cass/Walton, Lawrence Central/Indianapolis, Southport/Indianapolis, Columbus East, and Jasper — and two non-competitive festival sites — Franklin Community/Franklin and Jackson Field/South Bend — on Oct. 11.

The competition will include 175 high school bands with more than 16,000 students that will participate. Those bands reaching a predetermined score at the district competition will advance to a regional competition, at four sites — Jeffersonville, Indiana State University/Terre Haute, Lafayette Jefferson, and Chesterton — on Oct. 18.

Bands enter in Class A, B, C and D according to the size of the school with Class A being the largest. Special trophies will be presented to winners of each event.

This year, the top 20 scoring bands in each of the four classes from the regional competitions will meet at four semi-state sites —Franklin Community, Pike/Indianapolis, Warren Central/Indianapolis, and Ben Davis/Indianapolis — on Oct. 25, to determine the 10 bands in each class that will participate in the 35th anniversary of the state marching band finals. This year’s finals will be Nov. 1 at the Lucas Oil Stadium, where the four state champion bands will be crowned.

The Indiana Dairy Farmers, corporate sponsors of the Indiana State School Music Association, Inc. events, will present a $1,000 scholarship to a student from each of the four state champion bands.

A panel of out-of-state judges will evaluate the bands on music and visual captions at each event.

For more information on composite schedules for each district and festival sites, visit the website at www.issma.net.

andrea.hirsch@flyergroup.com

     

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