As this year’s football season comes to a close, the Winter Springs High School Band of Gold is also experiencing the end of their marching season.

On Saturday, October 21st, the Band of Gold performed at the Seminole County Marching Festival. This annual festival provides an opportunity for the marching bands across Seminole County to gather, interact, and perform with and for each other. The event is not a competition but rather a way of celebrating each school’s hard work on their individual shows in preparation for MPA (Music Performance Assessment) on Saturday, October 28th.

The event opened with a playing of the national anthem by all eight of the Seminole County marching bands, followed by performances from each band. The Band of Gold’s halftime show for the 2017 year includes songs from the popular musical Phantom of the Opera, and students were excited to show their friends, family, and bands from other schools the songs they had been preparing for the past four months.

MPA, like Marching Festival, is an annual event all high school bands attend to perform their halftime show for a crowd; however, the stakes are raised at MPA, where each band receives a rating from “poor” to “superior” in categories such as musicality and visual elements.

The WSHS Band is notorious for receiving superior ratings at every Music Performance Assessment, and on Saturday, October 28th, the WSHS band upheld their legacy of success and came home with straight superiors, making all members, including senior Alexandra Sostenuto, “very proud of the work the band has done this season.”

“This year’s show was difficult, but really fun to play, and getting straight superiors was a perfect way to end my senior year of marching season,” said Sostenuto.

This year, the Band of Gold has undergone numerous changes including new leadership, a new director, and even a category five hurricane, bringing about many cancelled practices and performances. Through these hardships, however, band students came together to ensure the continued success of the Winter Springs High School band program, ending marching season with yet another achievement for the books.