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Post by abtwitch on Oct 18, 2022 12:50:06 GMT -6
Everyone knows bands in Texas are fantastic, but so many go under the radar because they do not compete in BOA for one reason or another. I wanna use this thread to share some of those bands whose shows have stuck with me, but most people probably haven't seen.
I wanna start out in the city of Liberty Hill, which until recently was merely a small farming community north of Leander. The high school is most well known for their football team who has earned State Championships many times in the past and last year, they were the State Runners-Ups for 5A Division II, losing in the finals to Dallas South Oak Cliff 23-14. 5A? I thought they were a small farming community! Well they were, until the population boom happening throughout Austin made it all the way up to Liberty Hill. Lots of (relatively) cheap housing has been developed up there in recent years, so everyone is trying to move there (just as they were trying to move to Leander what feels like just 5 years ago). In the 2020 UIL Realignments, the growth in the city was enough to bump the school all the way up to 5A and at it's current growth rate, they will probably be 6A by the end of the decade (barring another school being built). Anyways, back to football (we're almost to the band part, but this is important), their head coach Jeff Walker passed away at age 52 in December 2020. In 2021, Shawn Murphy moved from his position at Burleson Centennial to take over the band program in the midst of them mourning the loss of Coach Walker. With the show repertoire already chosen and too late to change, Murphy made the decision to make the show a tribute to Jeff Walker. Before 2021, Liberty Hill was a 4A band who often struggled to even get a 1 at UIL Region, but last year Liberty Hill tied with Tom Glenn for State Alternate at Area H (below Leander, Cedar Park, and Rouse as well). In their show at the beginning and end, you'll see students wearing football jerseys and other sports uniforms. These are actual student athletes from Liberty Hill High School who were invited to take part in the show for Area Prelims. They were not provided transportation, so every student had to drive to the contest themselves. When they were announced to have made Area Finals, even more student athletes came to participate in the show and that's the performance you see here.
I don't expect most of these that I post to be nearly as long as I likely won't have as much information on the show as I do for this one (I learned almost all of this at Area Finals in 2021 overhearing parents talk about it), but I felt like I had to share this show in particular to start things off. So far this season, they have made finals at the Vista Ridge Marching Festival, placing 7th overall above bands such as New Braunfels and Weiss, and then they won the USBands Austin Regional over bands like William J. Brennan.
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Post by LeanderMomma on Oct 23, 2022 6:40:05 GMT -6
That’s an incredible story. Go Panther band. 💜💜
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Post by abtwitch on Oct 23, 2022 10:17:29 GMT -6
Update: They just won Area last night over Tom Glenn! Cedar Park, Rouse, and Leander were not in attendance since it is not a state year, but that's still a big step forward for this program regardless.
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Post by abtwitch on Oct 24, 2022 12:09:02 GMT -6
Next up we have San Marcos as I alluded to earlier in the Rankings by State thread! San Marcos as a program always left me dumbfounded as they are down the road from Texas State University who has a great Music Education program and lots of resources that local programs could take advantage of. While I don't follow the concert side of things closely so they could have been more successful there, San Marcos's marching band has generally been on the edge between getting a 1 or 2 at UIL Region. They've been slowly improving in recent years getting 1s a lot more consistently since 2018 or so, but they weren't on my radar until about a week ago when doing some digging for results on Facebook, I stumbled on a post congratulating the band for winning the Comal Classic Marching Contest (one of the many contests in Texas with a horrible track record at posting results online  ). While it is no TMC or HEB levels of competitive, they took down a fairly prominent band in the area, Smithson Valley, who just finished 4th at 5A Area D. I immediately went to go find a video and was blown away by what I saw, and was also no longer surprised that they won the Comal Classic. Here is their performance from a few weeks ago: |
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Post by hostrauser on Oct 24, 2022 19:04:05 GMT -6
As an out-of-stater, I caught a YouTube video several years ago of the UIL 1A (maybe 2A?) Championship winning performance by Sundown H.S., Sundown, TX. Take a look at where that is on the map. In the video, Sundown marched 117 kids. Their 9-12 school enrollment that season was 165.
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Post by jmike16 on Oct 24, 2022 23:41:52 GMT -6
As an out-of-stater, I caught a YouTube video several years ago of the UIL 1A (maybe 2A?) Championship winning performance by Sundown H.S., Sundown, TX. Take a look at where that is on the map. In the video, Sundown marched 117 kids. Their 9-12 school enrollment that season was 165. Sundown is a very good and BIG 2A band. Menard HS Band won 1A State last year with only 41 students, 23 of them being middle schoolers. |
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Post by hostrauser on Oct 26, 2022 17:28:33 GMT -6
As an out-of-stater, I caught a YouTube video several years ago of the UIL 1A (maybe 2A?) Championship winning performance by Sundown H.S., Sundown, TX. Take a look at where that is on the map. In the video, Sundown marched 117 kids. Their 9-12 school enrollment that season was 165. Sundown is a very good and BIG 2A band. Menard HS Band won 1A State last year with only 41 students, 23 of them being middle schoolers. I looked them up on Facebook. 12 of them were 7th graders. All five guard members were guard rookies (never handled equipment before season). Over half the band had their first ever contest three weeks before state. That's really impressive in any state, but especially Texas. |
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Post by jmike16 on Oct 26, 2022 20:19:59 GMT -6
Sundown is a very good and BIG 2A band. Menard HS Band won 1A State last year with only 41 students, 23 of them being middle schoolers. I looked them up on Facebook. 12 of them were 7th graders. All five guard members were guard rookies (never handled equipment before season). Over half the band had their first ever contest three weeks before state. That's really impressive in any state, but especially Texas. Very impressive for sure. I really like that show that they did. |
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Post by boahistorybuff on Oct 27, 2022 6:32:39 GMT -6
Thank you for this thread. Us non-Texans get overwhelmed by the insane amount of strong Texas bands. I have a hard enough time trying to remember all of the BOA participants let alone the non BOA participants in the state.
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Post by josephbandfan on Oct 27, 2022 8:42:17 GMT -6
Thank you for this thread. Us non-Texans get overwhelmed by the insane amount of strong Texas bands. I have a hard enough time trying to remember all of the BOA participants let alone the non BOA participants in the state. So do us Texans 😅. |
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Post by WoodlandsMom4ever on Oct 29, 2022 12:30:30 GMT -6
TRUTH!!!!
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Post by abtwitch on Oct 30, 2022 12:25:31 GMT -6
Breaking my own rules (sorta) with this one but this show needs sharing. While they have done BOA in the past including a handful of regionals in the past few years, they did not do BOA this year but were originally scheduled to. You know them, you love them, former BOA Grand Nationals Finalist and the biggest band to ever perform in Grand Nationals Finals: Duncanville. Let's flash back a year to 2021, Duncanville misses State for the first time in a long time. Their show had problems that many other bands in 2021 had, a show designed for a group who never got to perform thanks to COVID-19. Their 2020 show had particularly hard parts built to be suited for the strongest sections and without the resources to rewrite the show, the 2021 group had to make due what they were given. I saw their prelims run at Area and it was genuinely admirable how much the kids stepped up to get down as much of the show that they could, in fact they were third in prelims. Finals did not go their way for them and as I mentioned above, they missed state.
Going into this season, the team decided to bring in the whole Duncanville HS community to be involved with the band production this year. The props were built by the theater department, the art department painted some of the props (like the graffiti on the subway), and a singer was brought in from the choir department to be a featured soloist. Also worth mentioning as a change going into this season is Michael Shapiro from the Blue Stars coming in as the new Color Guard Director, and his impact can already be seen. The energy and buy in for the kids is completely different from last year and combined with a crowd pleaser show, Duncanville were set up for success. Looking to potentially medal at BOA Midland, Duncanville run into issues with their charter bus company a couple weeks before the contest and can't get anyone to fill in on such a short notice, so they are forced to drop, opting for a local USBands competition which they won very handily. After seeing them in person at the Duncanville Marching Invitational, I was even more upset about it because this show is something special and wish more people could have the chance to see it. So here you go this is their Area Finals run, which got them 6th place and a spot in the 2022 UIL State Marching Contest.
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Post by vidal28rdg on Nov 2, 2022 0:30:46 GMT -6
Breaking my own rules (sorta) with this one but this show needs sharing. While they have done BOA in the past including a handful of regionals in the past few years, they did not do BOA this year but were originally scheduled to. You know them, you love them, former BOA Grand Nationals Finalist and the biggest band to ever perform in Grand Nationals Finals: Duncanville. Let's flash back a year to 2021, Duncanville misses State for the first time in a long time. Their show had problems that many other bands in 2021 had, a show designed for a group who never got to perform thanks to COVID-19. Their 2020 show had particularly hard parts built to be suited for the strongest sections and without the resources to rewrite the show, the 2021 group had to make due what they were given. I saw their prelims run at Area and it was genuinely admirable how much the kids stepped up to get down as much of the show that they could, in fact they were third in prelims. Finals did not go their way for them and as I mentioned above, they missed state. Going into this season, the team decided to bring in the whole Duncanville HS community to be involved with the band production this year. The props were built by the theater department, the art department painted some of the props (like the graffiti on the subway), and a singer was brought in from the choir department to be a featured soloist. Also worth mentioning as a change going into this season is Michael Shapiro from the Blue Stars coming in as the new Color Guard Director, and his impact can already be seen. The energy and buy in for the kids is completely different from last year and combined with a crowd pleaser show, Duncanville were set up for success. Looking to potentially medal at BOA Midland, Duncanville run into issues with their charter bus company a couple weeks before the contest and can't get anyone to fill in on such a short notice, so they are forced to drop, opting for a local USBands competition which they won very handily. After seeing them in person at the Duncanville Marching Invitational, I was even more upset about it because this show is something special and wish more people could have the chance to see it. So here you go this is their Area Finals run, which got them 6th place and a spot in the 2022 UIL State Marching Contest. it’s a very fantastic and entertaining production. I could definitely see that the effort to bring this production to life couldn’t have been done without the whole community playing a part, the vocialist is fantastic, I was definitely astounded with how the show was such a distinct visual entity, hearing now about the theater department buy in to help with those props makes total sense, and they did a wonderful job with the New York theme, probably doing it the best out of any group that I saw with an NYC theme! I came into hearing them at Area prelims with a fresh, open-minded perspective. After hearing all of the negative stuff of their previous year’s show and how it turned out, I just rolled my eyes at it all, expecting every school to bounce back the same after a Covid pandemic is pretty silly of a prospect, and schools can and should be afforded the time to reestablish themselves without all the negative feedback clouding them! Anyone in the DFW area is intimately familiar with Duncanville’s track record of excellence and consistency, they could very well continue to branch out into the BOA scene again, along with of course being a formidable band to face in the UIL scene both in Area B and now state again. I’m sure they’ll be a band with more and more eyes on them again in the years to come with such a passionate community behind them and the staff and students to match, best of luck to them!! |
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Post by abtwitch on Nov 14, 2022 18:25:53 GMT -6
For the next band, I'm going back over a decade ago to 2010 for a band who never did BOA but had their time in the spotlight on the state level for quite some time. Before Sachse was the band they are now, Garland ISD's biggest name was Rowlett who qualified for the UIL 5A (current 6A) State Marching Contest in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2012, and then most recently the 6A SMC in 2014. I believe staff changes following the 2014 season led to quite the dramatic drop off for this program, but here is the placement this program got at State (14th, 10 made finals) while they were still competitive. I find the show to be very enjoyable despite it being over a decade old and the design feeling older thanks to the design lag that comes with a circuit like UIL. As to be expected with the best bands in Texas, it is performed to a very high level even for a non-State finalist.
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Post by Jake W. on Nov 14, 2022 21:23:40 GMT -6
I loved Rowlett!! When I first started keeping tabs on TX band maybe a decade ago, I remember stumbling across them on YouTube and thinking who is this wonderful group?? Kind of like North Shore 2016. I think they did one BOA contest (DFW?) maybe 2012 or 2013, placed super low, and seemed to me to have that "...never again : )" reaction. Also I remember them getting Montoya on board as arranger for a very brief period and I think doing a minor key variation of Festive Overture? It was really cool. I wished they had found more success outside of UIL.
But wow they fell. I hadn't heard the name in awhile, and they fell out of my consciousness, then when perusing Area C (I think?) results a few weeks ago, I saw they placed like 317th in Prelims. That was a "wow, I forgot about them, what happened??" moment for sure.
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Post by abtwitch on Nov 14, 2022 22:19:09 GMT -6
I loved Rowlett!! When I first started keeping tabs on TX band maybe a decade ago, I remember stumbling across them on YouTube and thinking who is this wonderful group?? Kind of like North Shore 2016. I think they did one BOA contest (DFW?) maybe 2012 or 2013, placed super low, and seemed to me to have that "...never again : )" reaction. Also I remember them getting Montoya on board as arranger for a very brief period and I think doing a minor key variation of Festive Overture? It was really cool. I wished they had found more success outside of UIL. But wow they fell. I hadn't heard the name in awhile, and they fell out of my consciousness, then when perusing Area C (I think?) results a few weeks ago, I saw they placed like 317th in Prelims. That was a "wow, I forgot about them, what happened??" moment for sure. Unless he did the same arrangement for them, it was actually my alma mater (Westwood) that did the minor version of Festive Overture which was my freshman year (2013)! |
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Post by vandybandyfandy on Nov 16, 2022 13:56:22 GMT -6
One to keep an eye on is Johnson High School, Buda, TX (Hays CISD). This is a new high school, so this band has only been around for 3 years. They opened in 2019 with just freshmen and sophomores and competed in BoA Austin that first year. I couldn't believe the were all underclassmen and all basically doing this for the first time. They were really, really good. And I think they have only gotten better. Give them a few years, and I think we'll be hearing about them a lot.
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Post by dbalash on Nov 16, 2022 14:02:52 GMT -6
One to keep an eye on is Johnson High School, Buda, TX (Hays CISD). This is a new high school, so this band has only been around for 3 years. They opened in 2019 with just freshmen and sophomores and competed in BoA Austin that first year. I couldn't believe the were all underclassmen and all basically doing this for the first time. They were really, really good. And I think they have only gotten better. Give them a few years, and I think we'll be hearing about them a lot. You mean the one that was just at Nationals? Yeah, we've heard of them. |
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Post by Jake W. on Nov 17, 2022 1:21:14 GMT -6
Unless he did the same arrangement for them, it was actually my alma mater (Westwood) that did the minor version of Festive Overture which was my freshman year (2013)! I had to do some deep digging - not a lot of info on Rowlett's past out there! Looks like it was 2011. Their show was called "Uninvited". I think it was DMJ as the arranger, but hard to know for sure - there's a show called Uninvited on his website that says it was debuted in 2011, and it seems like that's the one. Looks like that was the one year they dabbled in BOA, too; an early season Arlington regional, and they placed 22nd out of 33 bands (woof). I'm sure that was uninspiring after their UIL success. It's too bad Rowlett faded off, especially with such a great track record of appearing at 6 out of 7 state contests during their not-distant peak, and with neighboring Sachse finding success nowadays. Seems like a band that could have molded well into the current scene had they maintained. |
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Post by hewhowaits on Nov 17, 2022 7:13:46 GMT -6
One to keep an eye on is Johnson High School, Buda, TX (Hays CISD). This is a new high school, so this band has only been around for 3 years. They opened in 2019 with just freshmen and sophomores and competed in BoA Austin that first year. I couldn't believe the were all underclassmen and all basically doing this for the first time. They were really, really good. And I think they have only gotten better. Give them a few years, and I think we'll be hearing about them a lot. You mean the one that was just at Nationals? Yeah, we've heard of them. And many of us were surprised that they didn't make GN Finals. |
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Post by Allohak on Nov 17, 2022 12:03:01 GMT -6
You mean the one that was just at Nationals? Yeah, we've heard of them. And many of us were surprised that they didn't make GN Finals. Shocked. Astonished. Befuddled, even. IMHO they were the best of the 4 by a longshot |
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Post by ilikeguard on Nov 19, 2022 11:25:40 GMT -6
Don’t remind me that Johnson and American Fork weren’t in finals I’ve worked so hard on crafting the delusion that they were
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Post by abtwitch on Nov 19, 2022 11:50:02 GMT -6
Today's band is Queen City from just outside of Texarkana, one of the most storied small band programs in the state. Their show I decided to share was their legendary 2009 2A (current 3A) State Finals performance that earned them their second of three consecutive State Titles. The level of performance from this program this year was likely good enough to have them firmly in finals at most of the 5A Areas and if my memory serves me correctly, Queen City's director during the years they received their State Titles was the same as who was recently at Mineola. While they haven't won another title since 2011, they are still a consistent State Finalist never placing lower than 4th. Enjoy!
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Post by LeanderMomma Fan on Dec 18, 2022 13:13:39 GMT -6
Sundown is a very good and BIG 2A band. Menard HS Band won 1A State last year with only 41 students, 23 of them being middle schoolers. I looked them up on Facebook. 12 of them were 7th graders. All five guard members were guard rookies (never handled equipment before season). Over half the band had their first ever contest three weeks before state. That's really impressive in any state, but especially Texas. It absolutely breaks my heart that after Menard’s Band Director, Lyndsey Gold, moved to Redwater High School, Menard does not even field a show anymore.  |
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Post by jmike16 on Dec 18, 2022 14:52:26 GMT -6
I looked them up on Facebook. 12 of them were 7th graders. All five guard members were guard rookies (never handled equipment before season). Over half the band had their first ever contest three weeks before state. That's really impressive in any state, but especially Texas. It absolutely breaks my heart that after Menard’s Band Director, Lyndsey Gold, moved to Redwater High School, Menard does not even field a show anymore. Do they not anymore?! |
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Post by mikekyu on Jan 3, 2023 1:28:38 GMT -6
Argyle is on this list for me. They have dominated in UIL 4A and are now moving up to play in 5A. They had a gorgeous show this year and it bodes well for them moving forward. Will they beat the top dogs in 5A next year? Most likely not. They need to learn and reboot some of their design language before they can fight Cedar Park year in and year out. But will they make that transition? Yes, I believe they will. Will they be in the mix in 2 or 3 years mixing it up at the top of the class? I believe so.
Here's their show from 2022.
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). While it is no TMC or HEB levels of competitive, they took down a fairly prominent band in the area, Smithson Valley, who just finished 4th at 5A Area D. I immediately went to go find a video and was blown away by what I saw, and was also no longer surprised that they won the Comal Classic. Here is their performance from a few weeks ago:
