Four high school bands from the Rio Grande Valley including the Hanna Golden Eagle Marching Band will compete in this year’s State High School Marching Contest at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
The Golden Eagle Marching Band and the Harlingen High School Cardinal Marching Band will compete in the Class 6A marching contest on Monday and Tuesday.
Then on Wednesday and Thursday the Pirate Marching Band from Hidalgo Early College High School in Hidalgo, and the Tarpon Marching Band from Port Isabel High School in Port Isabel will compete in the Class 4A contest.
The Golden Eagle band, like its counterparts at the other three schools, departed Friday for San Antonio.
Each school is competing for the state championship in its respective division. Likewise, fans of each school’s football team are by now familiar with the show the bands will present in San Antonio because the halftime show at home football games forms the basis for the state marching show.
Band members have been practicing and polishing their respective shows since the third week of July, as per University Interscholastic League rules.
This year will mark the 10th year overall and ninth consecutive year that the Hanna Golden Eagle Marching Band has participated in the state marching contest. Because there are so many high schools in Texas, schools only compete in the state contest on alternate years. In odd years, 3A and 5A school go, in even years, 4A and 6A.
Also because of Texas’ size, qualifying for the state contest means competing against some of the best high school marching bands in the country.
Hanna performs at 2:45 p.m. Monday in the Alamodome. At 9:30 p.m., the 14 schools that make the finals will be announced and finals competition is on Tuesday.
Hanna’s show has been a success from the start. On Oct. 8 Hanna was named grand champion in the invitational contest in San Benito the weekend before Pigskin Jubilee. The show is titled “Canciones del Alma,” Songs from the Heart. The music should be familiar to anyone who has spent even a little time in South Texas, Brownsville Independent School District Fine Arts Director Michael Garcia said.
The musical repertoire includes El Rey, Malagueña Salerosa, No Me Queda Mas and El Cascabel.
“They open the show with the mariachi standard El Rey, and then a lot of the color and the visuals that you’ll see are traditional Mexican colors. There’s even folklorico dancers from the Hanna dance team, the Strutters,” Garcia said.
Band members “have heard all of this music since they were little with their parents. The show has a lot of fan appeal this year. …It really hits home to the people that live in this area, to open up with El Rey,” he said. “There’s a lot of people singing along up in the stands because it’s music they’ve heard all their lives. It’s going to be great to see the audience response in San Antonio when they get to see the show. It’s been going on at halftime, and in the contests leading up to the band’s UIL area competition this past week.”
The 6A bands qualified for state at Area G competition on Oct. 29 at PSJA Stadium in Pharr.
Instrumental Music Advisor Sam Rodriguez, a former Hanna band director and who helped design the show, said audience participation is intended.
“You go to any household in South Texas, you put on any of these songs, and within the first five notes I guarantee you everybody knows what that is. The show was for the people of South Texas. … And the whole purpose was to get the crowd singing along … to say ‘hey this is what South Texas, the Mexican-American culture is about. These are the songs of our homes, of our soul,’ and that’s what this is about. …This is who we are from the Rio Grande Valley and Brownsville, Texas. This is who we are, not just as Hanna but as a culture, this is who we are. The show speaks louder than just Hanna High School. They’re speaking for everybody from South Texas.”
Harlingen High School
This year will mark Harlingen High School’s 14th consecutive appearance in the state marching contest, a span of more than 25 years.
Harlingen’s show is titled “The Warrior Within” in honor of the fighting spirit students had to have to make it through the pandemic.
Band director Maria Coronado said she and her assistant directors wanted the show to reflect “the fight that the kids had to have within themselves throughout these past 2 1/2 years and the many changes they had to go through” because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been a struggle and they’ve been able to still be successful students, whether in their academics, in their music or both. …They’ve been able to succeed. It’s just a matter of them being able to find that warrior within to fight through all the unknowns and be sucessful. We found music that would reflect the stages of what a warrior goes through,” she said.
The show starts with a dark and ominous trumpet fanfare. The second movement models when you’re kind of feeling down and you’re not sure if you can go on. And then you find it within yourself to fight, to continue going,” she said.
“In the last movement there’s a French horn and a trombone. They do a warrior call and that’s when the band is playing and it gets more exciting as we go along and then there’s this real big trumpet fanfare and it signifies victory. It’s a very fast-paced final movement.” Coronado said.
Port Isabel High School
The Mighty Silver Tarpon Band will perform its UIL Show titled “A Wonderful World” featuring soloists Samantha Schrank on vocals, Adrian Jimenez Murat on baritone, Mark Mejorado and Ivonne Gonzalez on flute, and a narration by Angelina Delgado.
Senior Lily Perez is the drum major. Directors include Ronnie Rios, Alex Cavazos, Jose Cruz, Jose Guerrero, Giselle Cavazos, Edgar Park, Vivian Pena and guard tech Jose Negrete.
Hidalgo Early College High School
The Pirate Marching Band is directed by Jorge Lozano
“After a long year of not stepping foot on the field, these students came back with much drive and determination to make it known what HECHS was capable of doing.They demonstrated that their comeback is stronger than their setback! As the Pirate Marching Band sailed through every competition, a mix of emotions was felt. It felt very nostalgic to hear the crowd clapping and cheering us on. …It was very nerve-wracking, but we came to win!” HECHS junior Jose Escalante said on the school’s website.
