As school comes to a close, the marching band season is beginning right alongside summer. The show theme, “Sweet Dreams or Beautiful Nightmares,” has already been announced, as have the drum majors. 

Every year, the band directors choose a theme off of an ever-growing list of possibilities, compiled of inspiration from students, teachers, and the community. The top three choices of the list for this year were “Sweet Dreams or Beautiful Nightmares”, “Rise Up” (centered around a phoenix rising from the ashes), and “The Evolution of Dance.” “Sweet Dreams or Beautiful Nightmares” became the top pick, as it met the desire of band students to play both dark music and classical music.

The external inspiration for this year’s show came primarily from various Drum Corps International (DCI) shows, as well as the Beyonce song of the same name.

Band director Ms. Barbara Baker said, “My thoughts were to have both sweet dreams and nightmares portrayed. I wanted to basically have two halves to the band until they fight to overtake each other, layering the good dreams and bad dreams at the same time and merging. I wanted it to appear as if the good dream had won but as the band exits something shows you that the bad is still there.”

The 2018-2019 drum majors have also been selected. Last year, Brett Goss was a rising junior and was selected for assistant drum major, and this year, he has been promoted to drum major. The position of assistant drum major was given to color guard member, oboist, and rising senior Brooke Owen. 

Although trying out for drum major was a last minute decision for Owen because her primary marching experience lied in color guard, Ms. Baker said outside judges felt that she was the best candidate for assistant drum major. Goss’s experience and consistency as assistant drum major last season contributed to his appointment as drum major for this upcoming season.

He said, “I’m so excited about this show because there are so many directions we can take it. It’s a very flexible theme and I think it has a ton of potential.”