Third consecutive first-place trophy
Special to the American
Scoring a musical hat trick, the Brown and Jana Elementary Advanced Band in the Hazelwood School District took first place at the Six Flags Music Festival for the third consecutive year.
Three songs yielded the scores. The students averaged 82 out of 100 possible points from the three judges and achieved a combined score of 246 out of 300 points possible. They outperformed two other elementary school bands, nine middle school bands and six high school bands at the Palace Theatre at Six Flags Missouri last month.
This year, the band is composed of 14 fourth grade and 15 fifth grade musicians. In years past, the band included sixth grade musicians. That grade now attends district middle schools.
“We didn’t think we were going to be able to go to Six Flags this year because we just had 16 kids,” said Bill Volk, band director.
Since he wanted to give this year’s group the same shot at playing Six Flags as previous years’ music students, Volk checked with some potential band students and ended up adding 14 new members. They began playing their instruments this past September. Just two months ago, Volk asked them to join the advanced band.
“I was surprised we took first place because we had just a few advanced band kids to start, and now we have all these people, and they caught up to us really quick,” said Bryce Berry, a fourth grade saxophone player at Brown Elementary.
Emma Farley is one of those new students. She is a fourth grader at Brown Elementary, and she plays the trumpet.
“I thought it would easy at first,” she said. “I played clarinet in beginning band, but Mr. Volk asked me to change to trumpet in advanced band. I like it; it’s pretty cool.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of my students, and the judges were extremely happy with the students’ performance,” said Volk.
“They mentioned that the band played with good timing, precision, dynamics, style and articulation. The judges also pointed out that the students played well together, they were disciplined, professional and well-prepared. One judge even mentioned that they just took their first step to becoming a mature band.”