Rehearsals are underway for performances from February through April

By Kristopher Bataran, Guest CONTRIBUTOR

The Indoor Percussion season has begun and Sanford has started rehearsals for their 2023 program, titled “Strictly Business”.

Sanford is hosting the first Maine Band Directors Association competition of the year in the Partners Bank Gym on February 26th at 1pm. This will be the debut performance for winter percussion. After the 26th, students will continue to compete every Sunday until the beginning of April around Maine and New Hampshire. 

The biggest shows of the season will be a Regional New England Scholastic Band Association (NESBA) show in Salem, N.H. on March 11 and the MBDA Finals at Marshwood High School on April 2. 

Percussion Director Hailey Francoeur shared that this year’s show will “follow a character who goes through a work day at the office, only to become so overwhelmed by the paperwork, boss demands, and after work communications, they quit so they can pursue their passions!” 

Francoeur shares that the performers will be wearing business attire and incorporating the use of props to help develop the theme and setting. 

“There’s going to be a prop that on one side looks like a bedroom, where our character starts their day, and then it flips into a cubicle for their day at the office,” she explains. 

Other fun props will be a water cooler, and a backdrop painted to look like the aerial view of an office. In addition to this, the group recently received a brand new winter floor to march on, courtesy of the Sanford Music Boosters. The winter floor is a 50’x70’ tarp that goes over the gym floor. Not only does it protect the floor, but it also adds a clear visual platform for the show to be performed on, and it also gives the director an opportunity to paint and design the floor to align with the show’s theme. 

Francoeur also mentions that the music will be really demanding but has high hopes for them to pull it off and earn the gold medal in finals, similar to the Marching Band’s success this fall. 

These students have been working on this since December. Similarly to marching band, these students have to learn their music and their spot in the drill formation on the floor. This takes a lot of physical endurance, and students often start rehearsals with stretching and exercise.

Many of the students in the percussion ensemble are not actually percussionists, so they’re students learning a new instrument in addition to all of this. Last year, the winter percussion ensemble took home a gold medal in the MBDA finals at Sanford High (pictured below).