The Halloween Concert was a brainchild of superintendent Tim Christensen and middle school director Bob Palmer. If the HS Band is invited to play in future years, we will use it as an opportunity to show middle school and elementary kids how cool marching band can be. We will play a selection from our Halftime show, as we really don't have time to prepare anything else as a group during the Fall.
The Dessert Concert is one of our longest-standing traditions at Greene County High School. After marching band season ends, we choose concert band music to prepare for the Dessert Concert. Usually, we prepare a few Christmas-themed selections for this concert.
Our annual Pops Concert takes place at the end of Basketball season. Since we spend January and February learning rock music for Basketball games, we reuse it at Pops Concert, allowing the audience to vote for songs they'd like to hear.
In addition to our Pep Band library, we usually learn a medley from a movie or musical.
Large Group Contest typically falls on the first weekend of May for 2A schools. This concert is basically the ITBS or Iowa Assessment of the Band world. Three judges listen to our performance, assessing our tone quality, intonation, balance, blend, articulation, dynamics, choice of literature, and appearance. Each category gets a rating out of 5 for a total of 50 points. If we earn 46 points or more from at least two judges, we earn a Division I rating.
This festival is the most important part of our curriculum in the GCHS Ram Band. It shows the skill level of our students as well as the ability of their director to choose suitable literature and guide the Band through its preparation.
At the end of the school year, shortly after Large Group Contest, the Band and Choir share our annual Awards Concert. During this concert, we showcase our Large Group Contest material and sometimes an extra piece just for fun.
The purpose of this concert is to thank our senior class and their parents for their hard work, dedication, and the memories we've made together. It is never easy to say goodbye to Band seniors after four years of lessons, classes, concerts, bus rides, and pep band nights. At the end of the Band portion of this concert, we award students who went above and beyond as Band students. Our top award (pictured right) is the John Philip Sousa award, the highest, nationally recognized award given by HS Band teachers.