On Saturday, April 26, BVNW Band students competed in the KSHSAA State Solo and Small Ensemble Festival in Emporia, KS. The students earned the opportunity to participate by achieving a one rating at the Regional level earlier this month.

“It’s the kids individually practicing hard and taking the ownership that make [the performance] what it’s going to be,” band director John Selzer said. “It’s not driven by the directors at all – the students are totally in charge. We do the entries, we go along and cheer for them and stuff like that, but this is all their doing.”

Junior Zac Stower received a one rating for his performance with the Stower Brass Quintet. He said rehearsing for the state competition was a lot different from the regional competition.

“The piece that we picked was pretty easy to put together at first but it was hard to play together,” Stower said. “It was really more of just putting in a lot more time as a group with all five of us together and us listening to each other. It wasn’t necessarily more practice time, but more time we had to coordinate and spend together rather than practice alone.”

Selzer said most of the band members seemed happy with their placements. The band usually places about the same each year, which he said is not a bad thing, it is simply a steady pace.

“I thought we were below our usual average of tears this time around; we didn’t have any meltdowns or anything,” Selzer joked. “When you go through this, you start to get a grip on what’s going on and manage yourself. But yeah, there was a lot of celebrating going on.”

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The following BVNW band students received a “I (one)-Superior” rating on April 26:

Stower Brass Quintet-Zac Stower, Justin Henry, Clark Elford, Branden Rosenthal, Kit Bradley

Gram Percussion Trio-Sophie Gram, Camden Hatley, Madeline Connor

Camden Hatley, percussion

Justin Henry, trumpet

Clark Elford, tuba

Peter Hartman, clarinet

Gabi Rosenwald, flute

Kerri Ahn, flute

Rachel Bailey, flute

Alec Mitchell, clarinet

The following BVNW band students received a “II (two)- Excellent” rating:

Hartman Clarinet Choir-Peter Hartman, Kate Hartman, Alec Mitchell, Lauren Nordell-Morris, Anna Taylor, Claire Campbell, Tess Sharpe

Connor Gould, trumpet

Logan Crapser, alto sax

Surabhi Khachar, flute

Stuart Zizzo, tenor sax