Cy Creek Band UIL Competition

Today Rachel's band competed in the regional UIL competition. They performed both on stage with prepared music and then in a separate sight reading competition. They played 3 pieces on stage and sounded good, although both Greg and I thought the choice of music was pretty bad and didn't like 2 out of 3 of the pieces. I think their band director wants to choose music that will make him look impressive instead of trying to select pieces the kids will enjoy and play well. They ended up getting 2s on their stage performance, which put them on the bottom of the scores for the region. Sight reading was a completely different story. This competition is always the one that amazes me. They are given a piece of music they have never seen. They then have about 5 minutes to look at the music and have their director to talk them through the highlights of the piece and give them playing tips. Then they play the piece all the way through one time and they are done. It is a very impressive thing. And the kids did really, really well. They sounded amazing and received 1s for their performance (the highest school possible). The day was kind of a roller coaster, but I think Rachel felt very good about how they did.