The Carmel High School marching band appears to be in top form as the national competition draws near.
CHS won the Bands of America Super Regional Oct. 19-20 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis with 91 points, edging Avon with 90.15. The Marching Greyhounds won awards for Outstanding Music Performance, Outstanding Visual Performance and Outstanding General Effect.
“I felt like the students did a wonderful job of bringing the show to life inside Lucas Oil Stadium, and I was thrilled with both of their performances at the Super Regional,” said Chris Kreke, CHS director of the marching band.
Kreke said the band will continue to edit and clean the production for the BOA Grand National Championships Nov. 8-10 at Lucas Oil Stadium.
“We don’t really focus on the placings or the concept of repeating, although we have been very successful competitively the last few years,” Kreke said. “The students’ and staff’s focus is on making sure that the final performance of the show is our absolute best representation of it and as close to perfect as we can get it. So much of the competitive outcome is out of our hands that we make sure to focus our energy on the performance itself, and these two performances definitely showed us that we are right on track to have another special set of shows at Grand Nationals.”
The school’s production is titled “Voyage to Valhalla.” Kreke said the show utilizes visual images from Norse mythology and music from Gustav Mahler’s “No. 2 Symphony” and Richard Wagner’s “Ring Cycle of operas.”
“The show is a musical and visual epic journey and uses a large Viking ship prop to move the viewer’s eye through the production,” he said.
Kreke said he is looking forward to the last weeks of working together with the staff and students “to make sure that this is one of our best ever.”
