For the first time going with new band directors, both Varsity Lab 1 and Non-varsity Lab 2 Jazz bands will take part in Wylie East High School Jazz Festival on April 18.

This year, 12 bands from different schools in each Varsity and Non-varsity category will compete against each other in their classification. Lab 1 has four songs and Lab 2 has three songs. Learning the music pieces for over three months, students were focusing on the detailed punctuation and articulation of their skills during Jazz class. Avery Bright, a junior who has been in Lab 1 for two years, doesn’t know if her band’s preparation was sufficient to compete with other schools’.

“Last year we didn’t do much with our Jazz competition season, so I’m excited to see what this year will bring. I’m excited to see the competition that we go against,” Bright said. “But the contest may be a little intimidating for students because of the new directors. We’re still getting used to their teaching style and how everything is supposed to operate.”

New director and Lab 1 teacher, Lance Walker, has been teaching Jazz, concert and marching band for about 18 years in the Texas Panhandle, Metroplex, and Austin area. He has taken bands to several Jazz festivals, but this will be his first time taking them to Wylie East High School in recent years. 

“I think the main thing is that I hope this is a positive experience for our kids. One of the biggest things we’re shooting for is to build a positive band culture,” Walker said. “I wanted to provide a competitive avenue for kids to display and show off their skills, and I hope it’s an event that they’ll look forward to each year after we kind of have our debut.”

New assistant director and Lab 2 teacher, Daniel Rubiano, who has been teaching all bands at middle and high school level for eight years. He has had a lot of success at festivals in the past three years of teaching Jazz. Last year in the TCU Festival, he led his group to get first place, and helped the top Jazz ensemble get second in their classification. 

“The purpose of choosing the Wylie East is to get better at the language of Jazz, so we can use it to give us critique and feedback for what we can do better, and also to give us a comparison of how we stack up against other local schools,” Rubiano said. “Another reason is due to a good reputation and it’s later in the year. We couldn’t do another Jazz festival this year because it filled up immediately. It made a lot of sense to do Wylie East.”

This festival will include a few middle school bands, concerts, and a clinic, this means a guest musician comes in and gives bands suggestions right after their performance.

“I think it’ll be good for us to get immediate feedback from the clinic because sometimes if you get a written feedback, it doesn’t feel the same at the moment,” Rubiano said. “So having the clinic on stage will be very impactful with giving us things that we can do better.”

As for parents, Paloma Salmon, whose two daughters are in each Lab band, is very proud of them and has never missed their concerts before. 

“I love listening to my daughters play their instruments and play with the band,” Salmon said. “They have talent for playing, and I want to support them to keep playing Jazz and follow their dream.”

On the other hand, some students have a different outlook on the contest. One of Paloma Salmon’s daughters Elisa Montes, a sophomore in Lab 2 for two years, studies Jazz with her dad at home almost every day. 

“I’m very stressed about the contest. I don’t feel like we’re ready to play all the songs because a lot of kids don’t know really well at Jazz. They don’t listen to Jazz, and they don’t study Jazz,” Montes said. “But this is just our first contest, and we can see how it goes. So next time we’re gonna know how it is to be in a contest, and we’re gonna be more prepared.”

Bright also agrees it is hard being with students whose hearts aren’t all the way in Jazz.

“Some students are doing Jazz but they’re not enjoying playing. They might be doing it for their friends or for credit,” Bright said. “Also personally for me, the music is a little easy. Our director last year gave us very hard music, and we were able to play it.”

Some students were taught by different directors, too. One of them is Boden Brage, a sophomore who started playing in both bands this year and will play all seven songs at the Wylie East Festival.

“I think Lab 1 sounds better during class, compared to Lab 2,” Brage said. “But we play harder pieces, so in rehearsal it kind of balances out.” 

In addition to evaluating whether the music fits the students, band directors think that picking music that kids are going to like is important. Mr. Walker said the literature they picked will be a good change for bands to be very competitive.

“I would really be hopeful that both groups can end up in the top five placements of each group. It’d really be neat if we had a top three finish, but I think the top five is a realistic goal for both bands,” Walker said. “I think the biggest emotion that trying to convey everyone is just the overall excitement of seeing where we end up after this contest.”

Mr. Rubiano said it’s a good opportunity for students to play different styles and genres of music. He hopes students have an open heart to get exposed to more Jazz by listening to other groups and concerts, trying to imitate what they hear, and having a model for what they want to sound like. 

“What matters to me is that we have our very best performance. When I go to any sort of contest, I’m not thinking about trying to beat everybody. I’m thinking about let’s play to the best we can,” Rubiano said. “Trust in the process, trust in what we’ve worked on through those three months. And just have a good performance. If we do that, that’s all it matters.”