The Triton Central Marching Band is making some changes this fall.
To be more inclusive for both participating students and the community at large, the band is focused on creating several shows that take place during the football team’s halftime show.
The band will not be competing in the Indiana State Association of Music Schools competition on Saturday. However, the band’s director, Joey Shepherd, said that the band plans to enter two ISSMA events, the Festival Class, a non-competitive class.
Triton Central bands play three shows during halftime of football games.
The first, he said, will be the music for the Disney film Encanto. The band will play a medley of the American Army in celebration of his Knights of Military in the Community. The medley will include five of the six branches that don’t include the Space Force, Shepard said with a laugh.
And the last two games will feature music from boy bands from BTS and Backstreet Boys.
Shepard said the decision to play “Encanto” and boy band music was about finding music that appealed to the community as a whole.
He said “Encanto” would appeal to children in the community, while boy band music would appeal to adults in their 30s and 40s. Military Night Medley will appeal to older generations.
There were several reasons Shepard gave for the band making the schedule change.
“We wanted it to be more fun and more inclusive,” he said. “Our rehearsal schedule is very intensive and very expensive, especially for a group of our size to do it. I wanted to be a target, kids who really wanted to be in the marching band.”
Shepard’s class schedule has also changed this year.
Marching band classes are not offered. This used to be a mandatory class for band students. So students who didn’t want to be in the marching band didn’t join the band.
As a result of this change, the number of concert bands is expected to increase by 50% this school year with the addition of students who are not interested in marching bands.
This year’s marching band has 29 members, about the same size as in previous years.
One of his main focuses is to recruit more students into the band while also bringing the community together in the program.
“We’re just trying to hit the whole spectrum of the community,” he said.
This change allowed the band to cut their budget in half. This means that the costs that families have to pay have been halved. You’ll also spend less time rehearsing and performing.
The band will perform “Encanto” at the ISSMA Summer Showcase in Kokomo on September 20th and a boy band show at the ISSMA Festival in Southport on October 1st.
In recent years, Triton Central has had an inexperienced group. This fall, the group is more balanced, and with fewer staff due to budget cuts, Shepherd is relying on a larger student leadership team.
“My job, which I’ve always seen as a coach, is to build leaders and good community leaders in general,” he said. “I want them to be leaders in their communities 10, 20 years from now. And I always felt that that was my job. I give,’ because I think it’s really important for them to learn that skill.”
Bands making the switch this fall aren’t necessarily permanent.
“I don’t think anything is permanent,” said Shepard. “This is today. It takes too. It’s hard.”
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