On Monday, five Garretson High School band students headed to Salem to participate in the Big East Conference Honor Band concert. Caiden Maack, Aiden Johnson, Sage Solheim, Anna Ebbing, and Ben Wastell joined their fellow high school band students in song.
At the Honor Band concert, Solheim, a senior, was honored for four years of attending Honor Band. He has played the trombone throughout his high school career.
Two of those students have the honor of heading to All-State Band, as well.
Today through Saturday, Maack and Johnson will be headed to Pierre to participate in the All-State Band Concert. Maack plays the clarinet and Johnson plays the bari saxophone.
"It should be fun," said Band Director Nick Sittig.
Auditioning for the honor is required, he said, with a chromatic scale, a major and melodic scale, which are both very challenging according to Sittig.
"Normally, the auditions are in person, where they would have had to do sight reading and terminology test in addition to the other items," he said. However, those who auditioned this year had to submit a video due to bad weather, and play part of a solo along with a selected etude from the judges.
Congratulations to the participants of both concerts!
UPDATE 3/22/24: Sage Solheim was accidentally omitted from the article. This has been corrected.
