Marching season has ended, and it’s now time for concert season. The band gets new music for their arguably most important event, UIL. Just like athletics, the band has UIL and the same rules apply. If one has bad grades or has to go to ISS, they aren’t able to participate. 

Assistant band director Steve Bennett looks through JW Pepper (an online sheet music store) and picks out three pieces of music for his band. Using the pieces he selected, he works with the band.

“Preparation comes early enough to where I can find music that will fit the group that I’m working with,” Bennett said. “So once I find out the strengths and possible weaknesses of the group, I will find music, listen to stuff, you know, things that i’ve done in the past that i’ve had success with or would like to try a new piece that’s on the list, but i will try to get some music that fits the ensemble which is that’s really important.”

The Symphonic Ensemble receives the music towards the beginning of the first semester. Bennett has the band sight read some parts, if they appear to be too hard, he picks out some new music. Eventually, the band gets the music they’ll get to play and perform for judges at UIL.

“I was super happy that we got all ones and I’m very proud of us because that’s not really what I expected, especially in sight reading,” Freshman flutist Tulsi Patel said.

The ensemble went to pre-UIL and received all ones on both performance and sight reading — the highest rating a band can achieve in UIL. There were some small mishaps throughout the performances but overall the band achieved a score they worked hard for.

“This is not UIL qualified, looking at everything and giving everybody there really hard ratings and stuff like that,” Bennett said. “They were great judges that gave us critiques and stuff. But some of the things that we went through our performance probably could or couldn’t be the same result”

The band went to UIL held at PGHS and received a 1 on stage and 2 in sight reading.