Spring Update – Water Valley High School Band

By Wes Brown
Water Valley High School Band Director

Spring break is a welcome sight for all educators. We get to spend extra time with our families, tackle that nagging list of jobs to do around the house, and finally do things that we always say, “I’m going to get that done TODAY!” However, it somehow never gets done. This update on the band program falls into the third category for me. The band has been busy since the end of the 2024 Blue Devil football season, and I’m excited to allow you an inside look into what has been happening.

One of the most exciting parts in the concert season is honor bands. Now for those who might not know exactly what I mean by concert season, the term concert season essentially refers to the time after marching band season when we are playing music in a concert setting. This year our band was represented at three different honor bands.

The first honor band was the Mississippi Band Directors Association Honor Band held in Natchez in December. Trumpet player Skylar Jordan was selected for a third year to represent Water Valley at this ginormous honor band. This honor band has representatives from every band in the State of Mississippi that has band directors as part of the association, and being selected for this band shows a high level of skill and commitment.

The next honor band is the I-55 Honor Band. This honor band is held at Northwest Community College, and is hosted by the I-55 Band Directors Association. Basically any school within an hour’s drive of Interstate 55 can be a part of this association. We had a record breaking nine students chosen to represent Water Valley. Representing the junior high school were flutist Melondi Surrette, trombonist Ben Surrette, bass clarinetist Henry West, and trumpeter Carolyn Floyd.

Representing the high school were saxophonists Lee Ingram and Jackson Herrera, percussionist Ethan Walton, flutist Jordin Wier and trumpeter Skylar Jordan. For eight of the nine students, this was their first honor band performance and they only had about 24 hours to learn new music and put on a concert.

The students started rehearsing at 3 p.m. Friday with several intense and long rehearsals. They put on a concert of their music at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The final honor band we participated in this year was Ole Miss’ Mid-South Honor Band. Four students were chosen to represent Water Valley. Three of the students were seniors who auditioned for scholarships and received a spot in the Pride of the South band for the next school year – saxophonist Jackson Herrera, clarinetist Mallory Tidwell, and percussionist Ethan Walton. We were also excited to have bass clarinetist Kevin Kizer selected to participate in this honor band.

While I enjoy taking students to honor bands and allowing them to learn from different educators, we have also been busy bringing guests to the high school to teach our students and offer them opportunities to continue their music-making career beyond high school. A guest who comes regularly and is always a joy is former Water Valley Band Director Keith Morgan. He serves as director of bands at Blue Mountain University and often comes to talk to the students about the band at Blue Mountain. He also gives me advice as a still relatively young band director.

I was surprised and excited to welcome members of the US Army’s Field Band Jazz Band, The Jazz Ambassadors. They were on a tour in the Southeastern U.S.. In a “the worst they could say is no” moment, I contacted their coordinator and was delighted to learn they could send a few members to the school.

They performed a few jazz pieces for piano and voice for the students. They talked to the students about not only jazz music, but also what a career in the Army could be like if they chose to go down that path. To have musicians of that caliber come and perform for the band was awesome.

The final visitor as of this writing was Dr. Tim Oliver, the Director of Bands at Ole Miss. After meeting with Dr. Oliver during a visit to allow our students to watch a Pride of the South rehearsal, I discovered he had a similar experience in band in that he grew up and taught in small schools. I invited him to come and not only talk to the band about Ole Miss, but to share some of his knowledge and experience with us. That visit was arguably more for me as the band director than for the students.

Yes, Dr. Oliver worked with the students and we learned how to play music better, but I learned how to be a better band director. Sometimes, as a solo band director, I forget how young I am in the pool of Mississippi band directors. I need times where I take a step back and refine my craft, and Dr. Oliver coming to visit gave me that opportunity.

The last part of this update is about performances. We had a Pre-fest at Northwest Mississippi Community College. A Pre-fest allows the band to perform for a panel of three judges. Instead of getting a rating, we get judges’ comments. One of the judges also comes down and provides a brief clinic.

This gives us quite literally a judge’s perspective on our performance and how we can make it better for the official concert evaluation.

Our official concert evaluation is on March 31 at Oxford High School. This performance is similar to the State Marching Evaluation, where the performance is judged by a panel of judges and we get a rating of one to four. One being a Superior, the highest rating. There is a second part to this evaluation – sightreading. To put in layman’s terms, sight reading is when the students and I are given music that we have never seen and we have about eight minutes to learn it and perform it for another panel of judges to receive a rating.

Once the evaluation is behind us, we start learning new music that is more fun for our spring concert. After the spring concert, which normally wraps up all the performances for the school year, we start getting ready for the next school year, and start learning about next year’s halftime show. While I can’t tell you what the theme of the show is now, I know it will be hauntingly good.