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Schools

Drum Roll Please: School Bands Perform at Festival

San Ramon school bands perform in annual California High School Area Band Festival.

Seven San Ramon school bands transformed the newly opened California High School gym into a packed concert hall Thursday evening for the annual California High School Area Band Festival.

The California High School Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band, bands from Iron Horse and Pine Valley middle schools and fifth-grade bands from Bollinger Canyon, Country Club, and Montevideo elementary schools performed a one-hour concert for the students' families and other supporters of school music programs.

"Having been a teacher in this district for over seventeen years, it's exciting to see some of my fourth-grade band students now in the high school band and ready to go to college," said Mark Boyd, band instructor for Pine Valley Middle School.

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Fifth-graders from elementary schools that will eventually feed into California High School started off the concert with several pieces, including John O'Reilly's "March Supreme" and Ralph Ford's "Dervish," demonstrating how much they've advanced with just one year of band instruction.

Next came the sixth-grade combined middle school bands, which enchanted the audience with Jerry Nowak's "Under the Sea" from Walt Disney's "The Little Mermaid."

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The younger bands then discovered what a few more years of instruction sounded like. The seventh- and eighth-grade combined bands wowed the crowd with a jazzy rendition of By Higgins' "Blues Brothers Review."

Finally it was the high school band's turn to show everyone what happens when kids stick with band all through school. The students, dressed formally in black, performed "Soaring with John Williams," which delighted young attendees who know that piece as "that Star Wars song."

The concert finale was an evening highlight as all the students—fifth-grade through high school—picked up their instruments in unison and played "America the Beautiful."

"My favorite part was having all the schools together," said Logan Rains, a sixth- grade drumer from the Iron Horse Middle School band. "I loved having the high school show us how good we're going to be."

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