The sound of music will fill the air around Danville High School late Saturday (October 7, 2023) when ten marching bands perform. The DHS Band of Vikings is hosting its 49th Invitational Marching Band Contest. Bill Pickett has more…..
Danville Band Director Ryan Krapf says if you have not been to one of the competitions in a while, you will notice things have changed…
{AUDIO: ‘’Marching band is a much different world than maybe what everybody in the community remembers from the late 80s or early 90s – even early 2000s. Marching band has developed into what we call pageantry. It’s more theatrical than it used to be. There’s themes. There’s a show – for example our show is based on the Netflix series Wednesday Adams.”}
Krapf notes there are bands coming from all over the state to participate on Saturday’s competition….
{AUDIO: ‘’The first band goes on at 4:30, and then we are done. BOV (Band of Vikings) goes on at 7:30 (in exhibition). And we are hosting those groups every year. It’s wonderful. It’s a great time at Danville High School. And we are one of the longest – if not the longest running – high school competition.”
This will be the last year that bands perform on grass at Ned Whitesell Field because the school board has approved a $5.4 million dollar renovation of the area which includes artificial turf. Those improvements also include installing new seating which will also be in place by next year’s band competition…
{AUDIO: “It’s going to be fantastic because it will allow us to have a state-of-the-art facility. The kids deserve to have that facility. And then we’re hoping next year – for number fifty – that we can get a bunch of groups here and we would love to have a show of twenty to twenty-five (bands). It would be great to have a huge contest next year to celebrate number fifty.”}
Krapf adds he has even reached out to some university groups about possibly performing in exhibition at next year’s 50th Viking Invitational.
{Photo at top of this story courtesy of Danville High School Band of Vikings.}
