There has been a lot of confusion about what has been going on with WB’s Music Department lately. A meeting was held on Friday, April 26th, 2019 to clear up the uncertainty.
For the past couple of weeks, the students have been taking charge and working on their music themselves. Usually, one student has volunteered to conduct the band or choir while the others will play or sing their parts.
The meeting started out with Mr. Holenchik providing an overview of what’s been going on, and what the plan is. He established that Mrs. Sproull will not be coming back in the near future. Mr. Holenchik then told the students that the concert will still happen, with some changes. He then stated that the concert dates were moved. The new concert date is May 22nd and the concert would be a band AND choir feature.
It was announced that Mr. Yarrison would be handling the bands and that Mr. Stilson would be handling the choirs. The bands include jazz band and independent study, and the choirs include show choir and independent study. The two will be graciously helping out with teaching students their music. This includes conducting the concert.
Mr. Stilson and Mr. Yarrison might be making a few changes to adapt to the preparedness of the choirs and bands. This includes cutting music or cutting parts of the music. “Keep an open mind and be on a team,” Mr. Yarrison stated. Stilson said to “Make educated decisions and do the best we can.”
On April 10th, a job opening was posted on the West Branch Area School District Facebook’s Page for a summer marching band director and a fall marching band director. There is currently no update on who is taking the position nor the future of the marching band. There are sign-ups in the office for summing marching band for interested students.
Kelly Fuller, a senior choir member, has given me her input on the changes:
“I feel it’s going to be a vast improvement from what we’ve had because we haven’t gotten what we deserved lately.”
Elijah Williams, concert band president, also gave his opinion:
“I just wish it could go back to normal and be able to be consistent. I want to be able to have a full year without something crazy going on. It’s a lot of stress. Even me being president, I’ve been having to do everything (well not everything). I’ve been having to figure out how to get things going and how to figure everything out. I just want things to go back to normal.”
