Prairie high school’s band will soon be participating in the upcoming district band festival which will take place at Prairie high school in the auditorium on April 21st from around 8:00 a.m. to around 2:15 p.m. 

Anticipation fills the air for Prairie high school band members as they have been getting ready since December. “The district band festival is an opportunity for all middle school and high school band programs in battleground public schools to perform for critique from a clinician that we hire, you have a chance to warm up, perform in the auditorium for comments and scores and then we do a clinic afterward off stage.” says band director Ryan Messling.

A clinic is where a judge that watched you perform your set of music meets with you after and directs you, gives critics, and gives new ideas. This can be very useful for bands to excel in their performance the next time around.  The warm-ups are in the choir room, clinics take place in the band room and the actual performances will be in the auditorium.

Since the winter concert, lots of hard work and practice has gone into this showcase. Band president Ricardo Del Campo, a senior student at Prairie high school says, “It feels like a bunch of hard work that I’ve done finally gets paid off, it’s fun to see other bands be creative and I like knowing that our future is in the room. Lots of hard work and practice goes into this from everyone. It just takes practice time outside of school, I spend like two-four hours a day practicing, that is I how have all my stuff down,” says Ricardo Del Campo.

The event will be happening during school hours which affects who this is open to, “It’s more so closed to students involved in the event and any parents or family members of those students who would like to attend” states Messling.