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11/26/2018 11:00 PMAfter a successful season, the Yellowjackets marching band took home its second consecutive regional win in a competition of schools from Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
The East Haven High School/North Branford High School Co-op Marching Band traveled to compete in USBands New England Championship at Veterans Memorial Stadium in New Britain on Oct. 31. The band scored 92.913 out of a possible 100 points at the competition. Noting that his squad’s score was the highest in the country for the 2A group size, band director Matt Laudano said the only thing that kept the band from going on to the national competition was cost and a shortage of fundraising time.
“I think we would have had a really good shot [at nationals],” Laudano said.
Next year, Laudano hopes to take the band through the New England Championship and finally on to the national competition. In fact, he’s already signed up the band to go.
“We’re going to fundraise and do whatever we need to do,” he said.
Only seven seniors are graduating out of the band this school year, leaving the marching band with a lot of experience going forward.
“Band is the type of thing where every single person is important, whether they’re a first-year member or a four- or five-year member. They win and lose as a group,” Laudano said. “They achieved success because they came together as a group.
“The motto of the season was ‘relentless dedication to improvement,’” he continued. “Even if it was just one wrong note…We didn’t give up, we just kept working.”
The title of this year’s show was “The Fallen.” It was based off a piece of music called “Angels in the Architecture,” though two other pieces were included in the performance.
“It completely evolved from our first competition to our last competition…It became a beautiful show by the end,” Laudano said.
In addition to new choreography, Laudano says a local artist crafted two pairs of angel wings, one white and one black, to be worn during the show. By the end of the performance, the white-winged angel was lifted up and the black-winged angel was defeated.
“That was kind of the theme of the show, the struggle of light versus dark,” he said.
Laudano said that this year’s theme was more mature than many of the shows the band has put on in the past, which include “Milestones,” a tour through the important events in a person’s life, and “Young at Heart,” a medley of Disney songs.
“[The students] really liked it, I think, more so than any show we’ve done in the past,” Laudano said. “They just took it and they ran with it and they really loved it from the day we announced it last year…They were excited about the music and the theme.”
Laudano said that the band will continue to explore shows that are more complex both visually and musically in the future.
“Now that we’ve seen that we can be successful with a show that’s really difficult I think we’re just going to continue to push,” Laudano said. “The students will rise to that challenge, just like they did this year.”