The competition will once again be fierce at the New York State Field Band Conference’s 45th annual championships at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, but the Blue Devil band is ready to challenge for top honors on Sunday, October 28.
Huntington High School marching band musicians and color guard members are headed to Onondaga County, where they will be among 53 bands spread across six divisions vying for coveted state titles. The event culminates the fall competition season, which the Blue Devils kicked-off last summer with a weeklong camp at J. Taylor Finley Middle School.
Huntington will compete in the Large School 2 class division along with bands representing Sachem, West Seneca, Lindenhurst, Jamestown, Webster, Orchard Park, Corning-Painted Post, Horseheads and Kingston high schools. The Blue Devils are scheduled to take the field for their performance at 4:34 p.m.
Bands in the state championships are required to perform a musical and visual show of about 10 minutes in total length for a panel of ten judges, which rank the bands within each respective class. The highest scoring band in each class will be awarded the Governor’s Cup. Last year’s champions included Arlington, East Syracuse-Minoa, Cicero-North Syracuse, Phoenix, Corning-Painted Post and Roslyn.
The state championships will feature more than 4,000 band members performing before 22 judges over 14 hours of competition before a crowd of 10,000. The smallest band numbers 38 teenagers while the largest one consists of 200 musicians and color guard members. The bands will represent nearly every region of the state along with a pair of bands from Pennsylvania and one from New Jersey.
In addition to the 53 competing bands, which will perform from early in the morning to late in the evening, the University at Buffalo Thunder of The East marching band and the Syracuse University marching band will stage exhibitions. The legendary 198th Army Band from Rochester will also perform. Visit http://www.nysfbc.org for more information about this year’s championships.
Huntington’s 2018 field show is The Power Within. The Blue Devils have sparkled in competitions at Brentwood, Copiague, Walt Whitman, Arlington and Sachem. They will compete again at Mineola on Saturday.
