Early Thursday mornings, there’s almost no one in the school as my sister and I walk down the main hallway. The only sound is our shoes on the floor and the thump of her trumpet against her leg. Why? The BSM jazz band meets to practice on Thursday mornings. Sure, there are not many people in it, but there’s a jazz band here nonetheless. I would bet that not very many people know BSM has a jazz band, and that needs to change. Music programs at BSM deserve to be recognized much more than they currently are.
Everyone knows BSM has a small band and an even smaller orchestra, but almost no one knows what they’ve accomplished. I play flute in the BSM band and earlier this year, I went to the All-Conference Honor Band at Chanhassen High School with some of my classmates. There’s also an All-Conference Orchestra at the same time to which one of the orchestra members went.
All honor band members from different high schools gathered to learn three songs during the day and then held a concert at the end of the day. No students were told about this. No students were told about or given the opportunity to watch the performance. Because in the eyes of many, music programs simply aren’t as important as sports games.
More recently, the band attended the Metro-West Band Festival where the bands from each high school in the Metro-West Conference performed for each other. The director of the bands at Iowa University was there to “grade” our performance, in a sense. The BSM band received an “excellent” rating at the festival, which was not acknowledged by anyone at BSM.
Usually, if a sports team or other activity accomplishes something, it is announced during the morning or afternoon announcements. This wasn’t the case with the band. Even though we’re small, we’re not actually bad, despite what people think.
Another thing that irks me is that our concerts aren’t announced for people to attend. We’ve worked hard preparing the music, and there’s almost no one there besides the few parents of the band kids who make the time to come. It wouldn’t be that hard to make a small announcement a few days before one of our concerts to let people know it’s happening so that they can come.
I know many people don’t know they happen because last year, our band director told us that someone had asked her about the band concert, thinking it was coming up in a week or so. This was five days after the band concert had already happened. Clearly, not many people are informed about the concerts.
All of these things could change with a couple of announcements about the band—when our concerts are coming up, and when we’ve received an award. BSM’s other music programs like the orchestra also deserve the same recognition and should not be pushed aside because other things are deemed more important.