Rabbit Band prepares for really big show this week
While the Atlanta Rabbit Band may be getting bigger and better, and continuing to win awards this fall, Director Keith Sanders and Middle School Director Larry Breshears aren’t sure they are ready for this this weeks’s performance.
The district may not be ready either. It’s going to a first, the directors believe.
Instead of 150 bandsmen on the field with 10 or so twirlers, there will be 350 bandsmen and more than 110 twirlers. The added numbers are from the middle school’s seventh- and eight-grade symphonic and concert bands. Then, the twirlers will include the 107 “mini-spinners” at the middle school. These are kindergarten to sixth-graders who twirl batons and flash flags under the direction of Mike McGehee.
They’ll all be on the halftime field to play at least one number together. When the two directors talk about it, they can’t keep from smiling.
“We don’t know what will happen. We think we do, but we really don’t,’’ mused Sanders regarding the coming extravaganza.
The heightened numbers will show off Atlanta schools’ far-reaching music program. At the high school, some 35 percent of its students are in the music program, whereas the state’s average is around 8 to 10 percent. At the middle school, participation is nearing 90 percent of the students.
Atlanta High is already fielding its largest marching band. Their “Olympus” show band program this season is more powerful and complicated. On the sideline’s “pit” area, the percussion instruments and players are the most ever, the directors said.
The “Olympus” program presents quite a lot of sound and show. It recently won the Overall Outstanding Band award at the Four States Invitational Marching Contest in Texarkana. And, for the 12th straight year, the band won a superior first rating at University Interscholastic League judging in Mount Pleasant last weekend. This is as far as the marching competition will go this year because state competition is an every-other-year challenge.
And so, as the music program progresses, its directors can hardly wait for the start of a recent, voter-approved financial investment to build a new band hall.
“We already cannot meet all together, as one group in one room, except on stage in the auditorium,” Sanders said. “A new band hall will be great.”
“We can grow more,” Breshears added, noting that while 32 seniors are graduating this year, the class at middle school has 80 musicians who will be moving up.
“It’s not about wanting to. It’s about meeting the need,” Breshears said.
The Rabbit music program succeeds for two main reasons, the leaders agreed.
“We expect a lot, have high standards,” Sanders said.
“And the students take a lot of pride and ownership in this, too. You see them all the time scheduling their own section practices,” Breshears said.
Then the two were out the band hall door, getting prepared to meet the band on the field for more practice.
The players will have one more significant program to perform before concluding the marching season. They will be at Lake Hamilton High School in Hot Springs, Ark., in November to participate in another marching contest.
”We will want to see what the Arkansas bands are doing,” Sanders said. “We want to be sure we are keeping up.”