Austin Bands Field Report
What's Austin doing? Keeping it weird, and also really good at marching band...
Over the past three weeks, I had the privilege of going to various rehearsals and performances of band programs in the Austin area. These bands ranged from up-and-coming programs with little to no BOA experience in recent years to bands who will be competing for the gold medal at BOA Austin tomorrow. This metropolitan area has been one of the most rapidly improving locations for bands in the country, as evidenced by seven of the GEM’s Top 25 Marching Bands (plus one of the Next 5), or over 25%, being out of Austin.
The first band I was able to visit was #15 Cedar Ridge (TX) out of Round Rock ISD. Their show for the 2022 season is titled “In The Midnight Hour” and features the second and third movements of Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony along with “Rebel Yell” by Billy Idol. The show is about gargoyles and the old legends of how they would come to life late at night to defend their buildings from evil. They are making their competitive debut tomorrow at the BOA Austin Regional, where they will be in the running for a medal with a strong shot at taking home the gold. After that, they are traveling to the BOA West Houston Regional on October 1st, performing in exhibition at their Texas Marching Classic on October 8th, and then finishing their non-UIL season at the BOA San Antonio Super Regional on the first weekend of November. Last year, the Raider Band was thrilled to find themselves in the top half of the highly competitive super regional finals. As one of the only programs in the area to retain all of their staff going into this season, they hope to build on that growth.
Georgetown (TX) was the next program I visited with their Alice in Wonderland tribute show, “Down the Rabbit Hole”. Featuring Prokofiev’s March, Opus 99, the fourth movement of Malcolm Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances, “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, and “Hunting Wabbits 2 (A Bad Hare Day)” by Gordon Goodwin, the show is about the concept of time and finding the white rabbit. They will be making their competitive premiere on October 1st at the Vista Ridge Marching Festival, then focusing on UIL until October 29th at the BOA Waco Regional, where they will be in the running for finals, and then ending their season at the BOA San Antonio Super Regional. Georgetown has remained mostly absent from BOA in recent years, making their return at the 2021 BOA McAllen regional, where they placed comfortably in the top 12. With UIL ending on October 22nd for this program because of the alternating State years in Texas, the program has opted for two late-season BOA competitions instead of early season.
Next on my schedule was #21 Rouse (TX), the first Leander ISD program I got to observe. Their 2022 show is called “Luminosity” and features “Claire de Lune” by Claude Debussy, “Mercury” from Gustav Holst’s Planets Suite, “The Night Window” from 1917 by Thomas Newman, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”. They are another one of the bands making their competitive premiere tomorrow at BOA Austin, where they will be fighting for a spot in the top half of finals. Their next contest is back at Kelley Reeves with the Texas Marching Classic on October 8th. Then they will return to BOA Waco, where they took home the silver medal last year, and finish their season at BOA San Antonio, where they made their first Super Regional finals in program history in 2021. As with many other programs, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a relatively inexperienced group following the lockdowns, yet the band was still able to break new ground, and they are hoping to build upon that success with a larger and much more experienced group.
Going even further north, I traveled to Liberty Hill (TX), where a huge population boom is leading to a dramatic boost in the school’s - and by extension the band’s - enrollment numbers. Their 2022 show is titled “American Soldier” and is a tribute to past, present, and future servicemen and women. It features “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, “Ignition” by Todd Stalter, and “Story of Tonight” from Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda with hints of the “Star Spangled Banner” sprinkled throughout. You’ll also recognize their “hedgehog” props from the Mandarins’ 2022 production. The band program has come a long way in recent years, going from a 4A band who only sometimes got a 1 at UIL Region to tying for State Alternate at UIL 5A Area H. Their competitive season starts next weekend at the Vista Ridge Marching Festival followed by a USBands Regional in Buda on October 8th. They finish their competitive season at UIL Area on October 29th as it is not a 5A State year. While they are not competing in BOA this year, keep Liberty Hill on your radar, as they have BOA on theirs.
The fifth band I visited was Lake Travis (TX), which has a unique and exciting show for this year. It is titled “The Seeds Contain the Years” and features exclusively music by Arnold Schoenberg: Picture Studies: 4. “Olive Orchard”, Symphony No. 2 Migration: “Escape”, Finding Rothko: “Wine”, and Picture Studies: 10. “Pigeons in Flight”. The show is about stumbling upon a garden that has been neglected and tending to it and its growth over time as a parallel to life. On the field, Lake Travis will have an enormous, abstract metal “fountain” prop made for this show. They are coming off of several years of growth as a program, finishing the season last year by qualifying for the UIL 6A State Marching Contest and placing within the top 20 at BOA San Antonio. They are getting this season started tomorrow at BOA Austin, where they will be one of the groups with a shot at getting into the top half of finals. The following week they will be traveling to Houston for the BOA West Houston Regional, then that wasn’t far enough for them, so they will be returning to the BOA St. Louis Super Regional on the weekend of October 15th. Finally, they will return to the BOA San Antonio Super Regional as they usually do to finish off their non-UIL season.
#17 Cedar Park (TX) was the second to last band I was able to make my way out to go observe. Their show is titled “Mirror Mirror” and features “When I Was Older” by Billie Eilish, “Valentin’s Blood Flows” by Grandbrothers, Dance I. Movement I by Oliver Davis, Allegro for Hydroponic Systems by Christopher Tin, “Lament for a Frozen Flower” by Secret Garden, “The Bridge” by Arora, and “XXVI: The End of Dracula” by Philip Glass. The show, as the title would suggest, is simply about mirrors and reflections. Despite a dip in placements at BOA, Cedar Park has been the UIL 5A State Champion four consecutive times in a row, but this is the strongest the group has ever been in the pre-season in quite some time. They will be fighting for the gold medal at BOA Austin tomorrow and will return to Kelly Reeves two weeks later for the Texas Marching Classic. Their next contest won’t be until the final weekend of October when they return to BOA Waco to defend their championship title, which was also their first BOA Regional Title in program history despite their long history of success. Finally, they will finish their season at BOA San Antonio to contend for a finals spot and beat their placement from the previous year.
Finally, I got to go to the Dripping Springs (TX) Homecoming football game (which they won 77-0 over Austin High) to watch their post-game performance. Their show is titled “The Mandala Project” and features “Kaval Sviri” (Bulgarian folk song), The Prayer Cycle: Movement VIII - “Benediction” by Jonathan Elias, and original music by Ben Hylton. The show is about how mandalas take a lot of effort to make yet are swept away to be never seen again when you are done with them. It is also a metaphor for the marching season and how once you perform the show for the last time after working on it for a relatively short season, it is never performed again. Dripping Springs will start their season at BOA Austin tomorrow, their first time attending said contest since 2017, and they will be one of the groups fighting for a spot in the hyper-competitive top 12. Like Cedar Park, they don’t compete again until they return to the same stadium for the Texas Marching Classic two weeks later. Their next non-UIL contest is BOA San Antonio on November 4th, and unless they make finals at the Super Regional, their final performance and release of the mandala will be at the USBands Austin Finale (barring State qualification in their first year as a 6A band).
This is only a tiny sample of what bands in Austin have in store for us this year. There were many other programs I wish I could have visited but couldn’t for various reasons. The marching band scene in Austin has been exploding over the past decade and based on my experiences with the programs, the activity in Austin band isn’t even close to its peak.
Aaron Blackley is one of the original contributors for General Effect Media. Despite being young and fresh out of college, he has a vast knowledge and passion for the marching arts and has worked alongside the likes of HornRank as a ranker and moderator as well as the TxBands.com liveblog team since summer 2021. He can be found on Twitter as @GEMAaronB.