As Westview Gold stepped onto Mt. Carmel High School’s field, facing an excited audience, the performers took a deep breath as David Jang (11) lifted his baton, signaling the band to begin their field show of “En Memoria de Carmen,” Oct. 26.
Mt. Carmel’s 47th annual Tournament of Bands is one of Southern California’s largest and oldest high school band tournaments, with 24 schools from across Southern California competing this year. Each band is placed into a division based on size, going from 1A to 6A. Westview performed in division 5A, alongside four other schools.
The event ended in an awards ceremony, with Westview earning first place in band and first place in auxiliary in their division, and second place in percussion overall.
The 2024 field show is based on the opera “Carmen,” with the second half of the show exploring what happens after Carmen’s death at the end of the opera.
“The band and Color Guard work together to tell the story of Carmen,” Color Guard captain Valerie Hsu (12) said. “The band brings the opera to life through music, while the Guard provides the visual storytelling, portraying the characters. In the preshow, the band even does a bit of acting, representing the swooning townspeople from the original Carmen opera.”
Hsu, who performed as Carmen, faced some challenges as this year’s show involved moving props for the first time. The show included a table, signifying Carmen’s deathbed. As Color Guard flies a death tarot card over the table to show Carmen’s death, Hsu places herself on the pedestal. When the table is uncovered, Hsu lies dead as the table moves forward.
“It’s natural to feel nervous before a performance, but once I stepped onto the field, those nerves gradually faded,” Hsu said. “Performing on top of a moving prop is always a unique challenge, especially when there’s a chance it could break or be set up incorrectly. I had to really focus and remind myself to just perform as I know how. Fortunately, we practiced extensively with the props, so everything went smoothly during the performance.”
For Jang, the head drum major, the performance created a feeling of motivation, pushing him to conduct his best.
“I felt awake, perhaps a little too much,” Jang said. “There’s a certain electric, alive energy anyone feels before and during any performance—it can either mold into stage fright or determination, and I definitely felt the latter during those 10 minutes.”
According to percussion leader Liam Doran (11), members of Westview Gold have been preparing their 2024 show since the end of last school year.
“Percussion has auditions in the spring, then we spend the summer working on basics and ensemble playing,” Doran said. “We [practice] the first part of our show at band camp, then the rest of it when school starts up. After school, rehearsals are 3-4 times a week, in addition to the class period. It takes a lot of time to get over 100 performers to move and play together.”
After rehearsals, Jang worked on improving his conducting by watching recordings of the band’s rehearsals.
“The biggest issue I have is second-guessing myself when keeping tempo,” Jang said. “I just need to tune out all the extra noise on the field and focus on the drumline, which is where all of the tempo comes from.”
Early in the season, the band members work on perfecting small parts of the show, making sure that they are able to perform their program seamlessly.
“We’re on our refining stage of the season,” Jang said. “We’ve learned all of the large chunks of our show — the next step is to hone in on every single detail and make sure it sticks. The main focus of our rehearsals is consistency: I have to be as consistent as possible when it comes to translating tempo onto the field. It’s a lot to take in, and that’s why I love this part of the season. It’s like a big puzzle piece that you keep having to work on the parts you have already finished.”
The marching band and Color Guard’s dedicated practices paid off at the end of the evening when judges from the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association announced each division’s winners.
“At this competition, there were five schools in our division,” Hsu said. “They announce scores in ascending order, so when they called fifth, then fourth, then third, my heart was racing. By the time they announced second place, I knew we’d placed first. I felt relief and pride because our team had worked so hard the past few weeks, and it was incredibly rewarding to see that effort pay off.”
Doran said that Westview Gold feels confident in their field show and hopes to continue with high rankings throughout this season, which concludes in late November.
“I think the overall attitude towards this season has been pretty positive,” Doran said. “We are coming off the high of last year’s third place at SCSBOA championships. I feel like that energy has carried over into this year, and we definitely want to win a medal again. The show is ambitious and has a lot of difficult parts that need to be [brought] together, but we’re definitely capable of it, it just requires every student to commit to achieving that level of excellence.”
