FHS band finds common ground between blues, classical
This year, the theme for the show is “Dual Shades.”
“It is a lot about blues music,” band director Andrew Smith said. “We’re mixing it with classical music, so we’re going to feature heavily two soloists, Aryan Sharma and Edward Zhao, both seniors.
“They’re going to be kind of like dueling clarinets,” Smith said. “They’ll be a big part of the show.
“We have really strong musicians, and those two clarinets are very, very strong players,” he said. “We were looking at some music we could use to feature our woodwinds and brass that was fun with the blues music.
“And, the idea of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ came up, which is a very famous clarinet solo,” Smith said. “So, those two clarinet players get to play some of the fun, iconic moments of ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ and a mixture of other blues and classical music.
“It’s a cool opportunity to see how very contrasting styles of music, like blues and classical, have a lot of commonalities,” he said. “As the show goes on, we’ll see it, kind of, morph into its own genre of blues and classical music intertwined."
This year, with a new assistant director, Andrew Chunn, “in our competitive band, we have 142,” Smith said. “In our class band, which is where all the students are involved … we have about 170.”
They have one less in competitive band this year but there were 158 in class band last year, he observed.
They are being led by head drum major Ari Kim and assistant drum majors Lisa Garner and Evelyn Holmes.
The school’s first football game is Saturday, Aug. 22, which is an away game at Carson-Newman University.
“We’re not going to be doing our show that day, but we are taking our pep band … to support our team and school and culture in general,” Smith said.
“Our first performance at a game will be on Friday, Sept. 4, our first home game,” he said.
In addition to playing at games, the band will compete Sept. 19 in Sevier County, the Karns Marching Invitational on Sept. 26, a competition on Oct. 17 at Western Carolina University and Alcoa Marching Invitational on Oct. 24, as well as the Knox County Marching Exhibition hosted by FHS on Oct. 19.
“It’s where every Knox County School sends their band program,” he said about the exhibition. “We don’t have a competition, per se, because there are no ratings; but we all play for each other. Everyone’s welcome to come by and attend.”
