DARKE COUNTY — The Arcanum High School Marching Band received a rating of “Excellent,” or II, at the Ohio Music Education Association (OMEA) State Marching Band Finals at the University of Dayton’s Welcome Stadium on Nov. 8.
“Our band students played and marched a terrific show,” said Band Director Doug Albright. “There were really no glaring errors or problems in the performance at all. We would have been very pleased to crack into the Superior (I) level, but the bar is pretty high at the state level.”
“We had great support and interest in our performance from our school and our community. This has always been a supportive community for our high school band. I had an older music educator tell me when I was a new director that Arcanum was what he called a ‘good band town,’ and I think that is still true today,” he added.
The band performed music featured in the James Bond movie series, including “The James Bond Theme,” “Goldfinger,” “For Your Eyes Only,” “Die Another Day,” and “Live and Let Die.”
The state finals are sanctioned by OMEA, an organization in Ohio promoting music education in elementary and secondary schools. Its members are primarily active and retired music educators.
The panel of adjudicators (or judges) is made up of active and retired band directors or specialists in the field that they are judging (percussion for example). They assign each group a rating. The ratings are averaged to determine your final rating. The rating scale is from I through V, with I being the highest rating.
There were approximately 130 high school marching bands performing at state finals this year. In order to perform at the state level, bands had to qualify at an OMEA-sanctioned qualifying event. The Arcanum Marching Band qualified for state finals at the Piqua Marching Band Competition on Oct. 17.
This year, the OMEA marching band state finals were conducted at three sites: Brunswick High School, Hilliard Bradley High School and Welcome Stadium.
