Sisters High School Band wows judges

The Sisters High School Concert Band took top honors at the OSAA State Music Championships on Tuesday, May 13.

Each year the band has been one of only 12 from 3A schools to qualify for the event, making its place on these programs an honor and mark of achievement all by itself.

This is Sisters' fourth consecutive trip to the championships and this time the 63 members of the band took their achievement to its highest level.

"Each year a different panel of judges is brought in for the state festival," said music director Jody Henderson. An objective scoring process is used in judging the bands, but the end results really depend on the values the judges have about specific qualities of music making.

"This was just our year," Henderson said. "The judging panel was elated with the strengths the Sisters bands have always shown: their ability to play with a beautiful, refined sound and the mastery they have shown in playing with extreme expression."

All three judges awarded the Sisters ensemble no less than 27 out of 30 points in each of three major categories of their evaluation: quality of sound, technique and musicality. The group had difficulty in the sight-reading category, finishing with the median score.

But in the overall rankings based on a 360-point scale, Sisters earned the championship eight total points ahead of second place and 22 points ahead of third place.

"When they announced first place -- Sisters -- I was surprised and I jumped out of my seat," said senior alto saxophone player Ben Boro.

"I felt that we had played well, but I didn't know we had played well enough to get first."

Boro credited hard work on "musicality" for putting the band in the position to win.

Musicality is a hard-to-define subjective quality that Boro described as the "feel" of the music. It requires a lot more than hitting the right notes to make a piece come alive.

The band has to play together dynamically, listening to each other and playing with meaning and feeling.

"Everyone has to be in on it, not just one person working on it," Boro said.

That willingness to work together is a hallmark of the band.

"All the students have remained dedicated to the success of the band," Henderson said. "I feel they have earned something they really deserve."

The band made a first trip to the State Festival in 1999, placing third in its debut appearance. This year, 14 of the freshmen who were a part of the 1999 band are senior members of the 2003 Champion Band.

To Henderson, this was particularly good timing to win the title.

"I remember meeting some of the current seniors at the end of their fifth grade school year when I visited Sisters for a job interview," Henderson said.

"I always have a difficult time saying good-bye to the senior students in the band," the music director noted. "The honor we've shared this year will make this even more sentimental."