After an incredible performance on Saturday, the Plymouth High School Marching Band was announced as one of ten bands advancing from the ISSMA Regionals held at Lafayette Jefferson High School. While Saturday’s accomplishment was exactly what the band had been hoping for, the band members have been working hard to refine their performance skills since July band camp season began.
Competitions began in early September and the Pride of Plymouth came on incredibly strong at the Goshen Invitational. The band earned first place and won all of the caption awards for Best Music, Best Visual and Best Effect. Plymouth band director Bryan Ames stated, “the band came out really strong this season and they were overwhelmed to see they had the potential to be very strong this season.”
The Plymouth Band boosters hosted their 18th annual “Harvest Festival of Bands” at the “Rockpile” stadium on October 5th. “This was the largest home invitational we have hosted and twenty bands attended our event this year. Had we competed at this event, we would have won the entire show,” said Ames. Then, the band boosters hosted a second weekend of events on October 12th by hosting the ISSMA Scholastic Class State Prelims and the ISSMA Open Class Invitational. This brought nearly thirty marching bands to the Plymouth campus with over 2,500 high school musicians taking the field throughout the day. Nearly 3,000 spectators attended the event over a nine hour stretch of competitions taking place. “The new stadium has been so beneficial to our entire community. This event was probably the largest event ever hosted on our campus and brought several thousand people into our community. We are very fortunate that the state music association chose our campus as the host site for this event,” said Ames.
The Pride of Plymouth competed in the ISSMA Regional competition at Lafayette Jefferson on Saturday, October 19th, and gave their best performance of the season. ISSMA regulations prevent the release of placings and scores at the event, but the Pride of Plymouth was one of the ten schools who advanced to ISSMA Semi-State competition. The band will compete at Pike High School on November 2nd for this event and the top bands will move on to the ISSMA State Finals event to be held in Lucas Oil Stadium on November 9th.
The Plymouth Band boosters would like to thank the many community members and businesses who supported the band program in their two year project to replace the band semi trailer and band uniforms. “Our band semi trailer was over 30 years old and our uniforms were in their fifteen season of use and both desperately needed replaced. The community support to help make this happen was tremendous and our kids are so proud of their new look and identity as they step out to perform in the sharpest looking uniforms in our class,” said Ames.
Best of luck to the Pride of Plymouth as they prepare for the upcoming Semi-State competition
