On March 6th, the Mighty Hornet Band brought home their 2nd consecutive Sweepstakes award in the UIL sanctioned contest at Pleasant Grove high school. After securing their score of 1 in marching UIL, the band worked extremely hard these past three months to learn three pieces of music to perform onstage for a panel of three judges. 

“It feels really good to accomplish something like that with some of my best friends,” Junior Shakhya Shackleford said. “Even when the concert season was boring, it was great to learn and grow as a musician with my friends.”

The band performed, Slava March by Randall Standridge, The Crystal Fountain by Brian Balmages, and Brace for Impact by Cristina Huss, on a stage. Along with performing their prepared pieces, the band was also required to play a piece of music that none of the members had seen before with 7 minutes to learn and prepare before being judged. This is known to musicians as sight reading.

“Sight reading was easy, it was very fun seeing the new music and trying to play it for the first time under the pressure,” Freshman Cathren Rains said. “Even though the deadline was stressful at the beginning I knew we could do it easily with the time being we had to practice.” 

The Mighty Hornet band has started a tradition for future bands, to reach for the stars even when you might not see them.