Our concert bands are the heart of our band program, and all of our 200+ band students participate in at least one of our six curricular ensembles.

• Beginning Band (first-time or long-time-away instrumentalists)

• Concert Band (all freshmen)

• Percussion Ensemble (all fresh/soph percussionists)

• Symphonic Band

• Wind Symphony

• Wind Ensemble

All curricular ensembles perform three concerts per year. Our top two bands, Wind Symphony and Wind Ensemble, also participate in at least one festival/contest per year.

Wind Symphony and Wind Ensemble are available for Honors credit for seniors by application/audition. 

All first-year members are required to participate in marching band for one year. After that, marching band is an optional extracurricular activity for all curricular band members. Nearly 90% of our sophomore through senior band members choose to continue in marching band. We believe this speaks to the positive culture of the MCHS Marching Band! The marching band performs at all home football games, four local and state-wide competitions, and a number of community parades every year. 

Our program offers two extracurricular jazz bands:

• Jazz Mob (non-auditioned)

• Jazz Ensemble (auditioned)

Both jazz bands feature standard jazz instrumentation and perform in two concerts per year. Jazz Ensemble performs in at least one outside festival or concert each year. Sign-up for jazz bands takes place in mid-October, and auditions for Jazz Ensemble are held the end of October. Students must be in a curricular band to be a part of jazz band, with the exception of certain rhythm section spots. 

Minooka Indoor Percussion is open to any band or non-band student as an extracurricular ensemble. MIP meets from November through April and competes at a high level in the WGI circuit. Students need not be a member of a curricular band to join Indoor Percussion. Indoor Percussion directors are Mr. Nick Curatolo and Mr. Calvin Chao.

Pit Orchestra is a director-selected ensemble that plays for our annual spring musical. This group meets from January through March. Pit Orchestra spots are open to curricular band members first, with certain specialty instruments (guitar, violin, etc) open to the student body as needed by that year's show instrumentation.

All band students participate in Pep Band by performing at a number of basketball games each winter. Game assignments are divided by curricular band (WE/SB and WS/CB). We love bringing the energy of our huge pep band to MCHS basketball games!