Blue Devil Band Set for State Championships

The competition will once again be fierce at the New York State Field Band Conference’s annual championships at the JMA Dome in Syracuse, but the Blue Devil band is ready to challenge for top honors on Sunday, October 30.

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 competitive 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, Jamestown, Webster, Orchard Park, Corning-Painted Post, Hicksville and Kingston high schools. The Blue Devils are scheduled to take the field for their performance at 3:39 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.

The state championships will feature more than 5,000 band members performing before 22 judges over 14 hours of competition before a crowd of 9,000. The bands will represent nearly every region of the state along with bands from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

In addition to the 53 competing bands, which will perform from early in the morning to late in the evening, the Syracuse City Schools Marching Band, Pride of Rochester High School Marching Band, Syracuse University’s Pride of the Orange marching band and the University at Buffalo Thunder of The East marching band will stage exhibitions.

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 Malverne, Brentwood, Copiague, Hicksville, Arlington and Sachem.

Lily Wasoski, Jack Semelsberger and Kayla Murillo serve as the Blue Devils’ drum majors. The band’s student leadership also includes flute section leaders Jayden Feliciano and Donna Lazo; clarinet section leaders Charlie Michaelian and Felicity George; alto sax section leader Abby Schueller; trumpet section leaders Megan Lewis and Jayden Hoff Isavelle; mellophone section leader Aidan Geller; pit section leaders Katherine Estrada and Sonia Acevedo; low brass/low woodwind section leader Eli Soric; battery section leader Ben Edgar-McNerney.

Dana Saramago serves as the brass captain with Eli Soric as the woodwind captain. Diana Diaz Portillo, Deanna Elvir and Toni Reyes-Sorto are the color guard captains.

The 2023 field show is titled “Children of Zeus.” The show band ushers audiences on a trip back to Ancient Greece to explore the gods and goddesses they worshiped. Beginning with Zeus, the God of the Sky, weather, fate and law; known more commonly to the people of Greece as the King of the Gods. The show then focuses on Athena, the Goddess of Warcraft and Wisdom. Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. Hephaestus, the God of Fire, Smiths, Craftsman and Metal Working and Hermes, the God of Travelers and Guiding Souls. These gods and goddesses are direct children of Zeus and highlight the show through each of their distinct traits.

Huntington High School music teacher James Cloyd Doty organized the first marching band in 1934. It was open to boys and girls in all four classes.