Once a year, music directors of Alabama gather at the Alabama Music Educators Association Music Conference to watch students of all different age groups perform.
As one of these music directors, band director David Raney is proud to say that the wind ensemble is one of the bands to perform. Every year the AMEA committee selects one or two performing groups from each age group throughout the state. This year the wind ensemble was invited to perform.

“We were invited to play for the AMEA, which is all choir directors, band directors, orchestra directors and university directors in the state of Alabama. Each year they have a conference and we were invited for our wind ensemble to perform at that conference,” Raney said.

Bands and choirs sign up to perform at this event, but few get accepted to perform. The wind ensemble got invited to perform in their first year of submitting an application.

“I filled out an application and sent in a résumé and recording of all of our performances from the last two years. The way we were selected is that they evaluated our recordings and selected us over all the other bands that did the same,” Raney said.

As one of the most prestigious opportunities a band can achieve, the honor to perform is also held by the Monrovia Middle School band.

“Usually they only select one band from each district within the state, but this year they also selected Monrovia Middle School’s band and that is almost unheard of, that they have two schools from the same district, much less two schools within the same cluster,” Raney said.