Del Norte High School performs at the Pride of the Northwest field show in Grants Pass on Oct. 12. | Thumbnail photo courtesy of Dan Sedgwick, video courtesy of Danielle Wood.
Self-competition may be cliché in some circles — a motivational mantra personal trainers use to get clients off the couch.
But it’s why the Del Norte High School’s Band of Warriors triumphed despite coming in last in their category at the Festival of Bands field show in Eugene on Nov. 1.
“Even though we did get last place, the students didn’t feel that way because we had a massive point increase from where we were and the best score we’ve ever gotten in a competition,” DNHS Music Director Daniel Sedgwick told Redwood Voice Community News on Wednesday. “I’m talking [about] any year before this.”
The DNHS marching band, color guard and drill team performed at the University of Oregon’s Autzen Stadium twice on Nov. 1, taking judges on a journey through Dante’s nine circles of hell, purgatory and paradise. They received a score of 71.3, an improvement over their highest-ever score of 68. According to drum majors Nicole Sedgwick and Alex Long, both seniors, the score marks a turning point in the band’s trajectory.
Nicole and Alex pointed out that their rivals, Grants Pass, West Salem and Ridgeline high schools, each have a more extensive staff and consistently earn high marks.
“This is our first year breaking 70,” Nicole said. “That’s a big accomplishment.”
Sophomore Nathan Orijel, who is also a drum major, said the Band of Warriors performed more cohesively in Eugene than at its previous competition, Pride of the Northwest in Grants Pass.
“It was a lot more put-together,” he said. “We definitely improved a lot.”
The Del Norte High marching band, drill team and color guard put in an estimated 200 hours learning and perfecting their field show, according to Dan Sedgwick. Marching season begins in the summer and, in addition to roughly 130 hours spent practicing once school starts, Sedgwick’s students are also performing at football games.
The Festival of Bands and Pride of the Northwest are the only two field shows the DNHS band participates in. According to Sedgwick, at Pride of the Northwest his students are competing against bands from schools that are similar to Del Norte High, including Brookings-Harbor.
This year’s show, “Dante,” was written by Randall Standrich, an Arkansas-based composer, arranger and designer of the “marching arts.”
Sedgwick said the students chose the theme of the show and he had the drill — the ensemble’s movements on the field — custom-made for it.
“We let students have an advisory role when we pick shows. As long as it all makes sense, we go with it,” he said. “This kind of fit with what we needed at the time and it felt like the right idea. There are a thousand different ways you could do this — do you have custom music written? Do you pick a stock show? There are so many things you can do. It’s very creative and flexible.”
That can make judging a show with a specific theme like Dante complicated, according to Sedgwick.
“Judges are expecting you to portray Dante’s Inferno for the entire show and if you don’t do that the score goes down and one score can affect others,” he said.
Del Norte High’s interpretation of the Divine Comedy included a fiery pit and souls in torment, much of it conveyed through the colorguard, Nicole Sedgwick said.
At the Pride of the Northwest Competition in Grants Pass on Oct. 12, judges gave Del Norte High a score of 58. It’s an improvement over most years, but Dan Sedgwick said he and his students felt it didn’t “reflect what we had projected to the audience.”
So Grants Pass High School Band Director Lewis Norfleet agreed to give a clinic to the Band of Warriors as well as Sedgwick and his staff ahead of the Eugene competition.
“He talked about everything and anything, the nuts and bolts of marching band, where the students were doing good and where they could improve,” Sedgwick said. “His advice with our size group was, ‘Don’t do a themed show. I know you want to because it’s cool, but don’t.’”
Alex said she felt that Norfleet was telling her and her peers to choose what the show’s important parts are and work through those. This could be cutting out some choreography, she said, or tweaking the music a bit.
“Not everything has to be 100 percent energy, 100 percent all the time,” Alex said.
According to Dan Sedgwick, Norfleet’s advice was to let the music tell the story versus the band’s movement on the field. Now that marching season is over, Sedgwick said he and his students are brainstorming themes for next year’s show.
Sedgwick asked his students to keep Norfleet’s advice in mind and told them to come up with the concept of a theme.
Staff will choose the four they like best and finalize what the students have come up with, Sedgwick said.
“They have a second assignment of them justifying which show is the best,” the band director said. “There is still some student control and accountability, but then staff will make the decision based on what we think is going to get us the best score and, more importantly, be the most fun.”
For Orijel, that meant being more abstract.
Nicole pointed out that since there’s 100 students, about half of the ideas will likely get scrapped.
Though they didn’t get the score they wanted in Grants Pass, Alex, Nicole and Nathan received the High Drum Major award. This, Alex and Nicole said, was an accomplishment the band last achieved about two years ago.
“It means we’re able to communicate with the band properly,” she said. “It was having a good amount of respect and being able to work with your band and having good leadership.”
