Huntington High School’s Blue Devil marching band has unveiled the name of its 2019 field show. The “big reveal” occurred in a packed music wing classroom just prior to the winter break. Band members filled the space and heard the name and some of the music of the new show, “Disruption.”
Huntington High School’s Blue Devil marching band has unveiled the name of its 2019 field show. The “big reveal” occurred in a packed music wing classroom just prior to the winter break. Band members filled the space and heard the name and some of the music of the new show, “Disruption.”
Band coordinator and longtime high school music teacher Brian Stellato served as the master of ceremonies as student musicians waited on the edge of their seats to learn the name of the show and the concept behind it. Several band staff members were on hand.
The 2019 show’s musical selections will include Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain and Hans Zimmer’s The Kraken, which was popularized in Pirates of the Caribbean.
The new show will feature the band playing Swan Lake, only to be “disrupted” and to veer off to Night on Bald Mountain before returning to Swan Lake before being disrupted again toward The Kraken before returning once more to Swan Lake.
“It’s an incredible idea,” junior Lia Shechter said. “I couldn’t be happier with the staff’s decision and I can’t wait to see it come to life!”
The show is still a long way from being finalized as music has to be written and the concept needs to be more fully developed. But the essence of it was made known to band members, who were excited.
Mr. Stellato announced that the process of choosing the band’s 2019 drum majors and field major along with sectional leaders will begin in mid-January. Current band members were encouraged to “talk up” the organization and help recruit new student musicians, who will take the place of soon to be departed seniors.
“I am very excited with the musical selection for the upcoming show ‘Disruption,’” junior Robert Jean-Gilles said. “I love all the pieces and can’t wait to see what the drill and such will look like on the field.”
Huntington High School music teacher James Cloyd Doty organized the first band in 1934. It was open to boys and girls in all four classes, according to the 1936 edition of The Huntingtonian, the high school yearbook. “Although newly organized, this group has worked very hard and with the cooperation of the student body, the band members have received blue and white uniforms,” states the yearbook. “They gave a new feeling of school spirit to all of the occasions at which they appeared this year.”
More than eight decades after its founding, the Blue Devil band is still going strong.
