On Saturday, Oct. 7, the DGS Marching Mustangs will be hosting their 20th annual Music Bowl competition. The music bowl is a marching band competition, as well as a DGS band fundraiser, where bands from all across the Chicago-land area come to compete. There are 13 bands participating this year.
Marching band director Aaron Kennedy describes what the day of the music bowl will look like.
“So for us, it starts pretty early in the morning just setting everything up, getting things ready for the day. Then schools start to arrive, each group will get parked, they unpack their stuff, get everything ready to go, they go through a warm-up process… Then they go into the stadium and they’ll perform for a judges panel [with] about 10 judges and each judge is for a different category be it music or visual,” Kennedy said.
Junior Becca Snouffer is one of the drum majors for the Marching Mustangs. She shares the band’s mood in anticipation of the big event.
“It’s pretty exciting. It’s a fun day because instead of us being the ones who have to get on buses and go to other schools, we get to all hang out and do something other than rehearse. It’s a really good team-building experience because we get to see other bands and we get to be proud of our band program for being able to host something so big,” Snouffer said.
Though marching band is mostly showcased during football season, their preparation spans throughout most of the year. The band starts rehearsing around April for the upcoming season. They have practices throughout the summer before they begin band camp to prepare for football and competition season.
However, there is a large amount of preparation involved for the music bowl other than rehearsals. Junior Gavin Schnall describes everything being done to set up for the competition.
“First, because of how large of an event this is, we have students volunteer to walk door to door [to] the homes surrounding the school to inform them of the large mass of people who will be attending the competition… We have students calling community businesses and companies asking if they would be interested in sponsorships and advertisements… Finally, we begin to collect drinks and other food products far in advance as well to ensure we’ll have enough for the day,” Schnall said.
The event will take place all day on Oct. 7 and will be available for the public to watch in the DGS stadium. The band is looking forward to showcasing the program to all who attend.
