I believe I've mentioned this before - but in the school year 1976-77 (my senior year) my wife (then a junior. ) and I were a percussionist and tenor sax player respectively, in the Lloyd V Berkner "mighty Ram" Band. For the state finals that year our director Ron Floyd, chose this composition for the competition - Holst's The Planets. I can't tell you how many times we played this over and over and over and he was never satisfied with out performence, until that day on the big stage when we nailed it 100% and I mean not a single mistake to be heard by even the most discerning and learned judges. Back then, you simply never heard of high school bands attempting a piece such as this, but we pulled it off and got all 1s and came close to winning state. I have the CD to prove it. Floyd had our performance professionally recorded and made into slabs of vinyl (we had to pay $5 for the damn things and WE we the 'artists' lol). My MIL still had hers (I lost mine of course) and had it recorded onto CD. All I have to do is figure out how to record it onto a HD and upload to youtube - if anyone wants to hear it. Any classical fans would probably be pretty shocked to hear how well a bunch of high school brats were able to perform this fairly challenging piece.
Edit: Yikes! My wife just corrected me when I asked who we beat for state. She said "We didn't win state we got edged out." She can't remember by whom. We did win most of the marching competitions we entered but did not win state for sympony that year. The brain remembers things the derndest way. I'm just glad I found out before this post stayed up like that for any legth of time. This has nothing to do with me having a bad memory.
