Successful Band Camp Has Blue Devils Ready for Season
Huntington High School marching band members were back at school much earlier than most of their friends. The musicians turned in 12 hour days for a full August week at the group’s annual band camp, which saw the Blue Devils work to develop and refine this year’s field show, “One More Time.”
The Blue Devil marching band will perform at halftime of this Saturday’s football game as well as at the homecoming day parade and game on Sept. 29 and games on Oct. 13 and Oct. 27. The band will be in competitions at Sachem (Sept. 15), Brentwood (Sept. 23), Arlington (Oct. 7), Walt Whitman (Oct. 13) and Mineola (Oct. 20). The Blue Devils will host a competition on Sunday, Oct. 14 and will travel to the state championships in Syracuse to compete on Oct. 28. It’s quite a fall schedule.
“One More Time,” this year’s field show, features music that was specially arranged for Huntington and includes a pair of main musical selections: Malaguena and One More Time, Chuck Corea. “It is a high energy show with a Latin/Spanish flavor designed to entertain our audiences and feature the many talented students in our program,” said Joan R. Fretz, Huntington director of fine and performing arts.
This year’s Blue Devil marching band consists of 125 members, including 109 musicians and 16 color guard members. The summer band camp was a rousing success, by any measure and a concluding Sunday afternoon performance for parents and family members was “impressive,” according to those in attendance.
“It was a fantastic week,” said Jason Giachetti, director of the marching program. “Our members worked tremendously hard all week and fought through every obstacle, including the rain and heat. Our goal was to finish the show by Friday and that’s exactly what we did. There is approximately 7.5 minutes of music and 65 different drill sets to learn and memorize.”
Mr. Giachetti, assistant director Brian Stellato and the rest of the summer staff were pleased with the efforts of band members and their performance. “The students had an amazing experience,” Mr. Giachetti said. How can you not when you work so hard and in one week be able to perform this show? The freshmen worked equally as hard. The leadership in the upperclassmen clearly transferred over to the freshmen. They were a tremendous part of our success.”
The Blue Devil band parents once again proved to be helpful. Ranging from bringing water and ice pops to band members to fixing the trailer that carries equipment and supplies to preparing and assigning uniforms, parents have been working non-stop to make sure the band is ready to start its season.
“We were extremely pleased with everything that came out of band camp,” Mr. Giachetti said. “We feel the kids worked very hard. They left with a tremendous sense of Blue Devil pride. We can’t wait to start competing.”
For more information on the times of competitions or directions to the sites, call the music office at 673-2053.
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