On May 11th, the Wilsonville High School Symphonic Band completed at the 2018 band state competition. This competition was the culmination of all the festivals the band has competed at this year. There are two paths to get to state, winning the league competition and qualifying automatically, or the tape pool, where out of state judges listen to recordings of all the bands who got state qualifying scores at a festival to determine which bands are part of the top 12 and get to compete at state. 2018 is the third year in a row that the WVHS symphonic band has earned that honor. State is a very special experience, filled with beautiful music, great people, and a wonderful community. The WVHS band all sported boutineers made by the wonderful Mrs. Kubitschek and continued the tradition of getting dinner at a certain pizza place. Band state is the penultimate experience of the year for music students, and it was a joy to be included.

The symphonic band performed their competition set for this year, Country Gardens by Percy Granger, On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss by David Holsinger, and Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Elliot Del Borgo. This performance was scored by 3 different out of state judges, each giving the group a score out of 100. Wilsonville high school got scores of 81, 86, and 90. The other portion of the score came from the sight reading, where the band was given 7 minutes to learn a piece of music before playing it for a judge and getting a score out of 60 points. The band got a total score of 301, but got a five point deduction for not fulfilling the time requirement of 18 minutes of music. Because of this, the score dropped to 296, moving the band from fourth place to seventh place. Still, the band performed beautifly, and got the honor of playing with the 12 best 5A bands in the state. Being a band kid is one of the best aspects of my life at WVHS, and I’m incredibly proud of our work this year.