On Saturday, January 27th about 100 Seymour band students went to Columbus East to perform for Solo and Ensemble. Solo and Ensemble is an event where students from a variety of schools come and perform either a solo or a group with other people.

There are 5 different types of groups that the students play in. Group 5 is where most beginners start due to the the difficulty level of the music. The groups keep getting harder and harder as they go lower in numbers leading up to the most difficult group being one. In this group their choice of songs is limited.  Students have to pick songs out from a list of very difficult songs. If the group one students earn a gold rating then they move onto the state level competition.

This year there were a record number of students  going to state with 15 soloists and 6 ensembles. Kevin Cottrill, band director, said that the results of the students was dependent on their hard work and preparation. Most students were well organized and prepared. There were only two people that got perfects scores, Senior violinist, Shosei Ando and Junior saxophone player, Janet Taguchi.

Cottrill stated, “Students get performance feedback from professional musicians who play the same instrument/group. It is a wonderful experience!” When students perform, they are judged by a professional on how well they did. The judge writes down comments in a certain scoring subjects which help the students to grow in his or her musical ability.

All students continue to prepare for the upcoming state events, which will be the last time they will ever pick up those songs and perform it for a score!