From Mr. Clemente
Dear Winter Park Band families,
It's hard to put into words what a great week it was to be a part of the Winter Park Band last week! I'm so proud of our entire community and all the work that has gone into our 2022-2023 school year so far.
On Tuesday, we found out that 4 of our students were selected to perform with this year's Florida All-State Ensembles, one of the highest numbers of students from any high school in Orange County! Congratulations to the following students:
9/10 All-State Concert Band
- Charlotte Batten, alto saxophone
- Zachary Rediske, clarinet
9/10 All-State Concert Orchestra
- Henry Fu, clarinet
11/12 All-State Symphonic Band
- Lilah Storch, oboe
I would be remiss not to mention the other 29 Band students who also auditioned for All-State. Many had stellar auditions and we are extremely proud of their hard work and dedication to their craft!
On Friday night, we had our first opportunity of the school year to celebrate the class on 2023 and their accomplishments over the past 3 years at our annual Senior Night Football Game. It was a special evening honoring their accomplishments plus performing our entire 2022 show for our home audience and a football team win! Congratulations and thank you to all of our Band seniors and their families for your time, effort, perseverance, and continued dedication to the Winter Park Band. We are excited to see where you take us the rest of the year!
Saturday at Boone HS was a great day all around. The SOTW were at their best throughout the day at Marching Band MPA and did themselves, their school, and our community proud. We have had to deal with a lot this marching band season - from so much rain early in the season to Hurricane Ian, and from a lightning canceled football game on a school night to getting rained on at Saturday morning's rehearsal the students did a nice job of taking the highs and the lows of the experience in stride. Congratulations on your Superior rating from the adjudicators, a result of the perseverance and effort put in since late July. That quality and consistency is the goal of what we do and will continue to pay off for the rest of our year!
As always, an enormous thank you to the parent volunteers who truly make this program operate. Our uniform crew, operations crew, chaperone team, and fans in the stands make our community special! You are truly a special group of people.
This week, the fun continues as we will hold the 8th Annual Fall Festival of Bands in the WPHS Auditorium on Wednesday, 11/9.The evening includes performances by the Audubon Park School Symphonic Band, Glenridge Middle School Symphonic Band, the Maitland Middle School Wind Ensemble, the Winter Park Wind Symphony, combined students from APS, GMS, and MMS along with the Wind Symphony, the SOTW Color Guard, and the SOTW Marching Band to top it all off! It is a night celebrating the entirety of the Winter Park Band community and the success of our 6 - 12th grade program. The concert is free and open to the public, as are all our home Band concerts.
The football playoff game on Friday, 11/11, will be a home game with a familiar opponent - Lake Brantley HS. Please see the itinerary as the FHSAA playoff game start time of 7:30 PM will allow for a later arrival time than a normal home game. The SOTW will be in full band Pep Band mode, playing in the stands and not marching the show. The uniform is our 2022 Show Shirt, jeans, and athletic shoes.
Finally, as a look ahead to the following week, our 9th annual Night of Jazz will take place on Wednesday, 11/16. We hope to see you at our community event that features the Glenridge MS Jazz Band, Maitland MS Jazz Band, and all three WPHS Jazz Ensembles! Free and open to the public.
Let's make it a great week! Sell some Butter Braids!
Mr. Clemente
From the Band Booster President, Mrs. Dana Adkinson
Wow! So proud of this group of awesome students! Congratulations on your superior ratings yesterday! Yesterday’s amazing performance and ratings are due to weeks (actually, months) of HARD WORK, true teamwork and dedication to your craft. And the senior speeches afterwards really highlighted the importance of the relationships you all have built and are building within the band program. Band is more than music and performing … the lessons these students learn and teach (each other and us adults!) are priceless. Such. A. Good. Day!!!
Thanks so much to the volunteers and chaperones yesterday .. LOOOOOONG day!! And I can’t say it enough, that, outside the classroom and away from D-lot, this program does not run without volunteers. So appreciative of the lunch serving team that fed our children before MPA, and the chaperones who gave up 8 or 9 hours of their Saturday so that our kids could perform. If you see a chaperone or band volunteer, thank them for donating their time and talent for the cause!
And directors and techs, you guys get a huge round of applause for somehow creating a beautiful halftime show from ground zero. How you get 140 teenagers to do all that movement and play such beautiful music at the same time is totally beyond me. I wouldn’t know where to start! Mr. Clemente, Mr. Smith, Kiana, Mr. Cross, Mr. Bonelli and Ms. Perez, you all work magic!
Senior parents, thank you for supporting your band student on Senior Night. We had a lovely evening and a great event honoring the band’s 21 soon-to-be-graduates. Thanks to the senior parents who helped display posters at Showalter before the game and for those who helped ready the uniforms and prepare the mementos for the night. Congratulations, Seniors .. you guys are gonna take the world by storm!
And just when you thought marching band season was over, the Wildcat football team is on its way to post-season playoffs! No halftime show for these games, but we’ll have a casually-dressed pep band. And, you guessed it … we’ll need CHAPERONES … 12 to 14 to be exact! First playoff game is THIS FRIDAY (location TBD), so if you haven’t had the opportunity to chaperone, you still have time to do so before year’s end! It would be great to give some of our “regular” (and exhausted) volunteer chaperones a break with some new volunteers. Please consider donating a few hours of your time to the band for all of our kids .. Sign up here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fadab22aa8-football Chaperoning a football game consists of riding the bus to and from the game, watching the kids perform in the stands during the game, and basically escorting kids to the bathroom and / or concession stand. Super easy! Super fun! And GREAT COMPANY to boot.
Students who need volunteer hours, Uniform Coordinator, Amanda Schaefer needs some help organizing the uniform rooms once our official marching season comes to an end. Sign up to help here for a couple of Wednesday afternoons in November: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fadab22aa8-student
Get some needed rest, Wildcats! So proud of you all!
Dana Adkinson
Band Booster President
cell: 321.217.3243
Butter Braid Fundraiser - Happening Now!
Hello Band Family! We kicked off our Butter Braid fundraiser at marching practice on Thursday evening. Here is what you need to know:
- Butter Braids cost $15 each. Of that, $5.75 per braid sold goes directly to the student sellers account.
- Orders can be taken now through Nov. 16. You can use either the paper form that your student received on Thursday or there is an online store. Please keep in mind, that the online store WILL NOT ship them to anyone. These are meant for local folks as the product will be delivered to WPHS in December. They arrive frozen and have to be kept that way. If your student didn't have a chance in class to set up their online store in class, you can use the link below.
- https://store.myfundraisingplace.com/RegisterSeller/eebba705-a8c9-4bd2-8726-bdcde823ea8b
- Order payment can be made several ways. Cash, Check made out to WPHS or Schoolpay. The link for Schoolpay will be active on Monday. Schoolpay is preferred, but the others will be accepted.
- All orders, both paper and online, are due Nov 16. The paper order form should accompany any check or cash payments. Please put all in an envelope with your students name on it. They will drop it in the lock box in the band office. Even if you paid all on school pay, the paper order form has to be turned in as well. You will get it back at delivery.
- Delivery is set for December 16 after school.
Hope everyone has a restful Sunday! Be on the lookout for information about Door-to-Door soon. It will be here before we know it!
Heather RIbaric
Fundraising Chair
407-484-7952
Winter Park High School Band
