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Show WX High School instrumentalists seek goal of musical excellence By DONETA GATHERUM WOODS CROSS Each day over 100 Woods Cross High School students follow the winding hall that circles the school auditorium to find the band room. These are dedicated music students who want to develop their musical ability abil-ity to full potential. Their director, Steve Richins, has instilled a love of music in his students and this has in turn produced prize winning bands, ensembles and soloists consistently con-sistently for the past 1 1 years. The Woods Cross band program is much more than colorful flag teams and sharply dressed students stu-dents marching in a precision drill at the Davis Cup Competition. It extends into many areas of the school and community activity program including pep performances perform-ances at home football and basketball basket-ball games, concerts at the school and in the community and many zz and concert competitions at kional, state and university festivals. Name any band program in the state of Utah and you will find Woods Cross students participating participat-ing and achieving at the top levels. Mr. Richins notes his school sends more soloists to regional and state contests than any other high school in Utah. More Woods Cross students stu-dents attend colleges and universities universi-ties on music scholarships than come from any other Utah high school. The strength of the Woods Cross band program can be simply explained ex-plained by Mr. Richins' adherence to one goal "To provide students the opportunity to develop their musical ability to full potential." All programs marching band, pep band, jazz ensemble, wind ensemble, en-semble, symphonic band, percussion percus-sion ensemble or AP music is geared to achieving this goal. Mr. Richins gets kids excited about ab-out music by introducing music to them while they are in the elementary elemen-tary schools. Each year high school bands perform in concert at the schools that feed into Woods Cross High School. "Seeing teenagers teena-gers perform and hearing excellent music turns the young kids on to our program," Mr. Richins explains. ex-plains. From the beginning, this music educator carefully shows the youthful instrumentalists the steps that are necessary to reach the goal of excellence in music. This means attending rehearsals at 6:30 a.m., performing in concerts every six to eight weeks, sacrificing some social so-cial activities for the band work and taking p.ivnte lessons in order to achieve proficiency on an instrument. instru-ment. Parents and r"cJents both have to be committed to music in order to meet Mr. Richins' high expectations. ex-pectations. The support of the school administration and the retired re-tired Davis District Music Supervisor, Super-visor, Wayne James, has also helped keep the top quality band program succeeding year after year. "The commitment to musical achievement has to be just as great as any commitment to athletics," i f , .v. . , &80' "... J ... i "V. i - " . : - Ssj The Woods Cross High School Ja2z Ensemble won its tenth consecutive first place award j in the recent 4-A competition. Dedication and hardwork on the part of the students and I their leader Steve Richins, has led to the success of the performers. Mr. Richins believes. Evaluation of the program is another way Mr. Richins keeps enthusiasm en-thusiasm alive for himself and his band students in this high pressure, time consuming field. This year, the marching band program was carefully evaluated and a decision is pending on the future of the organization. Mr. Richins notes, "The marching band part of our program has been very helpful in creating a positive school and department image. It also benefits students in developing develop-ing physical coordination skills, self discipline, pride and self esteem. At the same time several problems have grown out of this I part of our program namely department depart-ment philosophy, time management, manage-ment, staffing and money." Problems included obligations to academic study, music study, family and jobs. The school district can no longer financially support replacement costs of instruments and uniforms. Parents and students are questioning the benefits-cost ratio of keeping a program that is used infrequently. Finally, Mr. Richins believes it is difficult to "justify the expenditure of time and money in pursuit of mostly-non-musical benefits. One new program will be offered at Woods Cross High School next year. This is a digital music ensemble ensem-ble class, one of three high school programs in this area offered in the United States. Between eight and ten people will be enrolled in this class that will center around the use of synthesizers and rhythm sections to create music ranging from "Switched on Bach" numbers num-bers to the latest pop sounds. The summer band program will be strengthened to include park concerts and summer holiday performances. per-formances. Woods Cross High School students stu-dents in 1988-89 will continue the long tradition of achieving excellence excell-ence in musicianship whether it be at a university band festival or the state 4-A final contests. The goal established firmly in the minds of the staff and the students will remain re-main to develop musical ability to the full potential. J |