The band’s Wind Ensemble will play in much cooler weather Saturday, Nov. 21. They were accepted earlier this year to perform in Seattle, Washington and have been preparing since.

Since the beginning of summer, the Wind Ensemble, the school’s top band, has been working on improving and preparing for their performance. Due to marching season and school, a lot of time has been taken away, making this process more difficult for the musicians. But with their hard work and determination, the band is swiftly improving as the date approaches.

“We’ve had a little less time than usual to prepare, but it’s been coming along,” sophomore Noah Davis said. “It’s taken a lot of our time since we’ve increased the amount of rehearsals. I think it’s going really well, we can run through most our pieces and the more difficult ones we’re working really hard on.”

The Western International Band Clinic is a conference held in Seattle for high school and college band members, as well as their band directors. They have guest performances by Honor Bands that are selected through a submission process where a director submits recordings to a panel of judges of the band playing music to be selected to perform at the conference.

For the high school category, bands from all over the country submit for consideration to be invited. However, they only select two bands from that category to attend and perform.

“For us to receive an invitation is a really great honor and privilege because it sets us on a national stage,” assistant director Jared Morgan said. “We’ll get to perform a 45-minute concert in front of an international crowd of band directors and students.”

As part of the preparations, the group held a mock performance Tuesday in the auditorium and played two songs during Advocate Thursday.

Many of the students attending the international conference are feeling optimistic about the upcoming performance. Though the trip is only a couple of days, many of the musicians would tell you that it’s going to be memorable regardless.

“I think we’re going to do pretty phenomenal,” Davis said. “There’s a lot of talented musicians in the band, the pieces are really cool and we have good directors, so it’s going to go really well.”