The Durant High School Pride of Durant marching band recently completed its band camp as it gets ready for the marching season.
Head band director Chris Gregg said the camp began for the drummers on July 28 and the rest of the band began practicing last week that ended Aug. 4.
“It’s lots of hard work,” Gregg said. “It’s been a very hot week and they’ve kept working very hard, so I’m really proud of that.”
This year’s show is called Plato del Corazón, Fire of the Heart, and it’s music from the original Zorro movie.
“It’s great music and it concludes with Stan Kenton’s Malaguena,” Gregg said. “So, very, very heavy Spanish flavor. Hot, passionate music.”
According to Gregg, the show will have many solos and the costuming is Spanish dress with red, yellow and orange colors.
“So very fiery,” Gregg said. “The drill … we asked that we cover more of the field. While last year, we were pretty compact to the front and middle of the field, you’re going to see the band be more spread out this year. So, I think that will be a big change for our audience.
“The music’s also more complex and I think more melodic and by the end, the kids are basically playing five fortissimo. It’s going to be huge. It’s a big show.”
Also this season, The Pride will be returning to the Tigerpalooza competition in Ada.
“We’re the reigning champions there the past two years and we’d like to go back there and open our season with that contest and we’re either going the next weekend to the Elgin Owls Contest, which we did four years ago or the Bixby Contest,” Gregg said. “We’re looking at one or the other of those and then after fall break, we’ll be going to a contest called Neewollah and it’s in Liberty, Kansas.
“It’s a celebration of Halloween which Neewollah is Halloween backwards. It’s a contest up there they do with bands from two or three states. So, we’re going to stretch out and compete against bands we’re not familiar with. So, we’re looking forward to that and of course, OSSAA at the end of the season. So, see if we can score regionals and get a superior rating again. Those are the goals, besides doing a good job.”
Gregg said the band has 40-something incoming fresh- men which is a big class for the band.
“We’re definitely marching more students this year,” Gregg said. “We were about 128 at the end of last year. We’re looking closer to 150 this year. Like I said, a lot of hard working, but there’s a lot of young out there, so we’re going to have to keep working really hard because we’ve got a lot of inexperience. We’re going to have to overcome some of that.”
Senior Taylor Chadwell is the head drum major and she is very excited about the season.
“It’s my senior year, so that’s obviously exciting,” Chadwell said. “We’re doing Plato del Corazón this year. It’s a lot of fun. Me and the other two drum majors already started on conducting through it and it’s a lot of fun to conduct. It’s a lot of tempo and it’s very energetic. I’m really excited. My other two drum majors are great so I’m really proud of them. They’ve been doing amazing.”
The other drum majors are Kiera Bully and Blake Preston.
“This band camp has been a lot of fun,” Chadwell said. “It’s really nice seeing all the hard work that people are putting in and like the energy they’re putting out and the dedication that so many people have, especially with the younger kids, seeing them get here and have fun and not only have fun, but also do good at what they’re doing and put effort into it. It’s always just really exciting to see.“
