McMath Bands 2022-2023

HELLO TIGERS!!!

Hello Tigers and welcome back to the band hall!! Mrs. Gaskill and I are SOOOOOO EXCITED to see you and can't wait to get started!! We are looking forward to the 2023-2024 school year to be the best ever. We have so many fun and exciting things planned for this year....some old and some new but all will be AWESOME!!  We are absolutely LIMITLESS!!!I hope you all had a great summer break, I know I did. Mrs. Harris and I spent the entire summer either on the coast or following The Cavaliers. We can't wait to hear what you did.

We will have many rehearsal and playing opportunities in both semesters. We are even planning a new spring festival for you to attend. We  will share more details in the near future. Honors and Symphonic Bands will be turning it up several notches and performing/competing at a new level of excellence. We anticipate Tiger Jazz to make another run for TMEA and the beginners are going to be OFF THE CHAIN!!!! 

We will have our annual band parent meeting on Thursday August 24, 2023 in the band hall. We will actually have two (2) meetings that night. Our "Returning Parent" meeting will take place at 6:00pm and the Beginner/New Parent Meeting will take place at 6:30pm. The first meeting is short because everyone already knows how we run the program and will cover "new" information, i.e. fee changes, new calendar events, etc... The Beginner Parent Meeting will be a little longer and more detailed.

Mrs. Gaskill and I are going to rely more on parent participation this year than in years past due to the fact that we will be so active. We are looking for a few Parent Leaders for each group (Honors, Symphonic, Tiger Jazz and Beginners) to help coordinate and delegate volunteers for things like off campus concerts, competitions, all district auditions, Solo and Ensemble Contest, etc... Like I stated before, we will be very busy this year.

We are happy to announce that our Private Lesson Staff  is nearly complete and, as of now, we have three DCI World Class members on our staff. Cat Yang, Cadets Drum Major will be teaching Saxophone, Brooklyn Davis, Carolina Crown, will be teaching Trumpet and French Horn, and our Tiger Band Alumni Travis Harris, III, The Cavaliers, will be teaching Trombone, Euphonium and Tuba. We will cover this in more detail at the Band Parent Meeting.

Please make sure to read and sign the band handbook acknowledgement form before the meeting. This will help explain many things and answer some questions in advance. You can find a link to it on the home page tool bar. Make sure to check the band web page and the band Facebook page often as well will be updating very regularly. Please feel free to reach out to us any time you have any questions. Our information is:

tharris@dentonisd.org 940-369-3333 and kgaskill@dentonisd.org 940-369-3336

Again, Mrs. Gaskill and I are so happy to be back with the worlds best band kids and we can't wait to get started!! 

LIMITLESS!!!

Respectfully,

Mr. Harris and Mrs. Gaskill

What are All District & All Region Bands?

All District and All Region Bands are prestigious bands that are comprised of students selected from a wide range of schools by an audition that the students will begin preparing for on Wednesday, August 17th. The audition process involves scales and techniques, a technical piece of music, a lyrical piece of music, and a short sight reading excerpt played for a judge to earn a spot in the All District or All Region Band.  

The All District Band is compiled of Denton ISD middle school band students that have been working and preparing the same music as one another to audition and earn a place in this prestigious group. The All District Auditions take place on Saturday, October 14th at McMath Middle School.

The All Region Band is compiled of multiple districts in the area including  Denton, Lewisville, Argyle, Lake Dallas, and Northwest ISDs. The All Region band includes more students over all auditioning, which makes it more challenging to earn a position in this ensemble. All Region Auditions take place on Wednesday, October 25th at Hedrick MS in Lewisville (instruments  auditioning: oboe, bassoon, bass clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax, bari sax, euphonium, tuba, percussion phase 1) and Saturday, October 28th at Huffines MS in Lewisville (instruments auditioning: flute, clarinet, trumpet, horn, trombone, percussion phase 2). 

Students that earn a position in these prestigious groups have the opportunity to perform as a part of these groups in a concert with other students that match their advanced caliber. (All District Band Concert is Friday, January 19th & All Region Band Concert is Saturday, December 9th).

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