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Old 11-18-2011, 02:28 PM
 
6 posts, read 15,171 times
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We're moving to the Denver area after the holidays and have friends in Parker and in Highlands Ranch. The school we're pretty sure we're going with is Chapparral High School there and they have a competitive marching band.

Believe me, I totally understand your frustration though, my husband did marching band through high school and traveled with the Madison Scouts for 2 summers in college. He was a trumpet performance major from Indiana. Where we are now, south suburbs of Chicago, we have VERY few schools that actually compete. My middle daughter is a sophmore at a decent sized school here, they have a 200 member band, but still don't compete. Indiana is HUGE on band and marching, here it's much more of a joke.

Good luck though!
Kellie
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Old 11-21-2011, 09:50 AM
 
Location: Denver, Colorado U.S.A.
14,164 posts, read 27,106,972 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TrumpetPlayersWife View Post
We're moving to the Denver area after the holidays and have friends in Parker and in Highlands Ranch. The school we're pretty sure we're going with is Chapparral High School there and they have a competitive marching band.

Believe me, I totally understand your frustration though, my husband did marching band through high school and traveled with the Madison Scouts for 2 summers in college. He was a trumpet performance major from Indiana. Where we are now, south suburbs of Chicago, we have VERY few schools that actually compete. My middle daughter is a sophmore at a decent sized school here, they have a 200 member band, but still don't compete. Indiana is HUGE on band and marching, here it's much more of a joke.

Good luck though!
Kellie
It looks like there are decent marching bands at many suburban high schools. But I do get the feeling that marching band is a bigger deal in the Midwest and South. If one of my kids is interested in music, the Denver School of the Arts is near us as least.
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Old 11-21-2011, 12:38 PM
 
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
7,138 posts, read 10,972,934 times
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Originally Posted by denverian View Post
Apparently it's just a DPS thing. They must have a horrible music programs at the high schools. It looks like the Denver School of the Arts has a strong music program, but they refer students interested in marching band to the Citywide marching band and it looks like a joke.
Has Denver Citywide gotten that bad? When I lived in Denver it was clearly one of the top marching bands in Colorado. They were going to all the national parades.
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Old 11-21-2011, 01:22 PM
 
Location: Denver, Colorado U.S.A.
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Originally Posted by KaaBoom View Post
Has Denver Citywide gotten that bad? When I lived in Denver it was clearly one of the top marching bands in Colorado. They were going to all the national parades.
I don't know... they have a website and by a few pictures on it, it looks like they have fewer than 50 members, and it looks like they don't perform at football games. I would think that if they're pulling from all the Denver high schools, they would be large, and very good.
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Old 11-21-2011, 02:01 PM
 
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
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Originally Posted by denverian View Post
I don't know... they have a website and by a few pictures on it, it looks like they have fewer than 50 members, and it looks like they don't perform at football games. I would think that if they're pulling from all the Denver high schools, they would be large, and very good.
Thats just sad. When I lived in Denver, I never though of Denver having a lack of marching bands. it seemed that every High School had a band. Some were good, some not so good, but they all had bands.

Here is another website with an article on Orlando Otis who was the band director for Citywide in the 1990s.

From 1991-1997 he was also the director of the award-winning Denver City Wide Marching Band. The band marched at 6 National Bowl Games, Performed at the G8 Summit as a guest of Denver Mayor Wellington Web and President Bill Clinton and the band 200 members strong, marched at the 1997 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, CA. Mr. Otis was also the guest conductor for the citywide jazz and symphonic bands on 5 occasions as well as co-director of the Denver Junior Police Band for 2 years. In 1997 Mr. Otis received the prestigious Governor’s Award for “Excellence in Education” presented by Governor Roy Romer.

Meet the Director | Legend Titan Band

If they are down to 50 members now, they have really gone down hill.
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Old 11-21-2011, 02:26 PM
 
Location: Denver, Colorado U.S.A.
14,164 posts, read 27,106,972 times
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Originally Posted by KaaBoom View Post
Thats just sad. When I lived in Denver, I never though of Denver having a lack of marching bands. it seemed that every High School had a band. Some were good, some not so good, but they all had bands.

Here is another website with an article on Orlando Otis who was the band director for Citywide in the 1990s.

From 1991-1997 he was also the director of the award-winning Denver City Wide Marching Band. The band marched at 6 National Bowl Games, Performed at the G8 Summit as a guest of Denver Mayor Wellington Web and President Bill Clinton and the band 200 members strong, marched at the 1997 Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, CA. Mr. Otis was also the guest conductor for the citywide jazz and symphonic bands on 5 occasions as well as co-director of the Denver Junior Police Band for 2 years. In 1997 Mr. Otis received the prestigious Governor’s Award for “Excellence in Education” presented by Governor Roy Romer.

Meet the Director | Legend Titan Band

If they are down to 50 members now, they have really gone down hill.
OK, maybe I was wrong about the Citywide band. From their website:

Denver Citywide Marching Band


"In recent years, the Denver Citywide Marching Band has traveled to Tuscon, Arizona; Memphis, Tennessee; San Antonio, Texas; Pasadena, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; Chicago Illinois, and Washington D.C. They also travel around the state of Colorado, performing in field show competitions and parades. This years events may include several high school football halftime shows, CU Band Day, The Friendship Cup, Arapaho Band Days, and the Colorado State Fair. "

Looking at the pictures on the site, they don't look very big, but maybe it's just the pictures.
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Old 11-22-2011, 03:46 PM
 
Location: Coos Bay, Oregon
7,138 posts, read 10,972,934 times
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Originally Posted by denverian View Post
OK, maybe I was wrong about the Citywide band. From their website:

Denver Citywide Marching Band


"In recent years, the Denver Citywide Marching Band has traveled to Tuscon, Arizona; Memphis, Tennessee; San Antonio, Texas; Pasadena, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; Chicago Illinois, and Washington D.C. They also travel around the state of Colorado, performing in field show competitions and parades. This years events may include several high school football halftime shows, CU Band Day, The Friendship Cup, Arapaho Band Days, and the Colorado State Fair. "

Looking at the pictures on the site, they don't look very big, but maybe it's just the pictures.
Well there website is pretty unremarkable, for sure. They don't have much information on it. I was looking for info on their history, and couldn't find much. Regardless they don't seem to be doing as well as they were in the 1990s. Last time I saw them was probably at the Parade of Lights, in 1997. That would have been about the time they went to the Tournament of Roses Parade.

Also I was thinking back to the Parade of Lights in the late 1970s. At that time the Parade of Lights was five nights, with different marching bands each night. I'm sure that there were at least a couple of different Denver H.S. bands each night. Then if my memory is correct. When the Denver Citywide Marching Band was formed. They promoted them as an all-star band made up of members from all of the Denver H.S. marching bands. I'm wondering when they because the sole marching band for the Denver public schools.

Anyways its sad to hear that marching bands seem to be going out of style. I don't know what parades would be without bands.
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Old 12-01-2011, 02:01 PM
 
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Default Denver Citywide Marching Band

I was a member the inaugural year. We were brand new back in 1980. We were approximately 250 members strong. Propsective members auditioned and were drawn from all 11 (or was it 12) denver area high schools. The band director's name was Bailey (can't remember his first name) he was really something. We were all measured for uniforms and they were brand new - they were blue and we had white ostrich plumes on our hats.

None of us had been in a marching band before and so we spent the entire summer (5 days a week) at south high school learning how to march and practicing the music. It was really something when we gave our first performance there at South for all the friends and family. My parents cried they were so impressed with us. That year all our performances were "exhibition" (ie: non-competitive) since we were new. We were in the parade of lights. I know we went to a competition at the Air Force Academy and at the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo. We also went to one at CU-Boulder. Can't remember them all. We did not really travel that year other than hopping on a bus to go to a few places in Colorado.

It was really cool cause it was new and we were huge and had all worked really hard and looked and sounded great. It saddens me to see that the band has dwindled to almost a non-entity and that it now has to draw from both the high schools and the middle schools just to draw the small number of members there are. Things must have gotten pretty bad in the schools up there (guessing apathy?).

Wish someone somewhere had a video of the band in those first few years. We were one of the biggest bands wherever we went and we were loud and proud.
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Old 12-02-2011, 09:25 AM
 
Location: Denver, Colorado U.S.A.
14,164 posts, read 27,106,972 times
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Originally Posted by gayla5ft2 View Post
I was a member the inaugural year. We were brand new back in 1980. We were approximately 250 members strong. Propsective members auditioned and were drawn from all 11 (or was it 12) denver area high schools. The band director's name was Bailey (can't remember his first name) he was really something. We were all measured for uniforms and they were brand new - they were blue and we had white ostrich plumes on our hats.

None of us had been in a marching band before and so we spent the entire summer (5 days a week) at south high school learning how to march and practicing the music. It was really something when we gave our first performance there at South for all the friends and family. My parents cried they were so impressed with us. That year all our performances were "exhibition" (ie: non-competitive) since we were new. We were in the parade of lights. I know we went to a competition at the Air Force Academy and at the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo. We also went to one at CU-Boulder. Can't remember them all. We did not really travel that year other than hopping on a bus to go to a few places in Colorado.

It was really cool cause it was new and we were huge and had all worked really hard and looked and sounded great. It saddens me to see that the band has dwindled to almost a non-entity and that it now has to draw from both the high schools and the middle schools just to draw the small number of members there are. Things must have gotten pretty bad in the schools up there (guessing apathy?).

Wish someone somewhere had a video of the band in those first few years. We were one of the biggest bands wherever we went and we were loud and proud.
Makes you wonder what happened. Either a bad band director, or the music programs at the middle/high schools are now so bad that there's no one qualified to pull in to the band.

I went to high school in the KC area and all high schools had marching bands that were pretty good. The band I was in had something like 130 members, so if you had 200, that's huge.
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Old 12-02-2011, 04:38 PM
 
369 posts, read 962,967 times
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I really doubt the quality of the marching bands in the entire Denver metro area can be gauged by one band's sparse website.

Rather than assume the demise of marching bands along the front range, maybe someone should call one of the bands or the Colorado Bandmaster's Association and talk to someone with direct knowlege:

Colorado Bandmasters Association - Index

Or maybe contact the bands selected to compete in the Street Parade Competition in the Parade of Lights this weekend:

Arapahoe High School "Warrior" Marching Band
Columbine High School Rebel Marching Band
Denver Citywide Marching Band
Highlands Ranch High School Falcon Regiment
Lakewood High School Bengal Regiment
Legend High School Titan Marching Band
Mountain Range High School "Mustang" Marching Band
Overland High School Marching Trailblazers

Or contact one of the finalist bands in the statewide championships:

http://web.mac.com/manzcw/CBAMarchin...A3A_FINALS.pdf

Just an idea...

Last edited by denver_hacker; 12-02-2011 at 04:39 PM.. Reason: typos
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