The school marching band kicked off a month-long journey of performances and competitions at their first judged performance at the FUHSD Expo on Oct. 11.
The FUHSD Expo is an annual event hosted by Homestead High, where the schools in the Fremont Union High School District and other invitational school marching bands have the opportunity to showcase their show to a panel of judges and other fellow marchers.
This year, the school marching band was invited to perform alongside Homestead, Lynbrook, Monta Vista, Cupertino, Mountain View and Fremont.
“It’s non-competitive,” band director Jason Shiuan said. “There’s no scores, no rankings, none of that. The idea was to give the students a chance to be able to meet each other and perform for each other.”
This non-competitive environment provided a good opportunity for members of the band to meet like-minded peers. They could meet others outside their program, learn about other schools’ programs and get experience performing in front of a crowd.
“It was great, and I could feel the energy behind me,” senior drum major Matthew Liu said. “Every time you did a hit or you went into a really cool feature, [the audience] understood the work behind us.”
Many members agree that their efforts and improvements after their first football performance on Sept. 6 clearly showed in this event. Although the band had had a busy week — with many rehearsals and a senior night performance on Oct. 10 — Liu still believes that their Expo performance was one of their best performances of the year.
“I think the band was really prepared,” Liu said. “We had lots of good rehearsals going into it. I feel like we were really focused. We had a great performance in the afternoon. I feel like everything was set up to have a great run.”
This expo featured a board of judges, each focused on a specific aspect of the performance. The judges were invited as a way for the band to receive feedback on their performance and also as a test run before their first competitions.
The music judge was Russell Gavin, director of bands at Stanford University and CEO of the Santa Clara Vanguard, an award-winning drum and bugle corps.
The percussion judges were Laurent Chang, an instructor for the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps in Concord, California, and Huei-Yuan Pan, who has extensive experience marching with various drum and bugle corps, including the Phantom Regiment and the Cavaliers.
The visual judge was Grant Knox, an associate director at San Jose State and the lead of their marching band. Finally, the color guard judge was David Zhiem, the guard instructor at Amador Valley, who also taught the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps.
The band received positive comments from the judges. Shiuan said the judges were impressed with the design and of this year’s show, entitled “The Thread Between Us.”
“I think the students have been doing a really good job of trying to push themselves and bring as much to the performance as possible,” Shiuan said. “There’s always going to be something more that we want to aim for, but I think we’ve set ourselves up for a really successful final push for our next shows.”
Upcoming shows include the Cupertino Tournament of Bands on Oct. 25, halftime of the last home football game against MacDonald High on Nov. 7 and the final competition at the WBA NorCal Supershow on Nov. 8 in Sacramento.
