Desert Wind Symphonic Band ‘excellent’ at ABODA Regional Festival

March 8, the Desert Wind Middle School Symphonic Band earned a rating of excellent in the Arizona Band and Orchestra Director’s Association Regional Elementary/Junior High Band Festival. This event, held at Mesquite Junior High School in Gilbert, featured many of the East Valley’s finest Junior High/Middle School bands.

Desert Wind’s Symphonic Band earned praise and superior scores for their control of tempo, consistency in intonation, and their quality, characteristic sounds on their instruments.

Following their performance, these seventh- and eighth-grade students received great feedback from clinician Bill Patterson, Arizona music educator and past ABODA president. The clinic focused on expanding their dynamic and expressive capabilities as an ensemble in their performance of their repertoire, as well as concepts to focus on in future performances. Symphonic Band also received recorded comments from Patterson and two other clinicians – Jon Gomez and Ann Haenfler.

In addition to their performance and clinic, Symphonic Band heard performances from four outstanding groups from other area schools (Willis Junior High School Symphonic Band, Kyrene Aprende Middle School Seventh-Grade Band, Kyrene Altadeña Middle School Eighth-Grade Band and Desert Ridge Junior High School Eighth-Grade Rattler Band).

Roger Wagner II, Desert Wind’s instrumental music director, said,”Symphonic Band’s performance represents the tremendous effort our students have put into building the Band program and continuing the pursuit of musical excellence at Desert Wind. We are incredibly proud of the hard work our students have put in and we look forward to continued growth.”

Symphonic Band will be joining the Desert Wind Orchestra, Tiger Band and Maricopa High School Orchestra for the MUSD Art Walk on May 3 at 6 p.m. in the MUSD District Office and all of the Desert Wind, Maricopa Wells and Maricopa High School bands, choirs and orchestras at the Maricopa High School Performing Arts Center on Saturday, May 12, for the fourth annual MUSD Music-a-Thon – featuring special guest Mayor Christian Price.