Marching band starts season with wins.
By: Mary Ellen Zangara
Saturday night’s Pioneer Marching Band Festival at Somerville High School was the first competition of the school year for the Manville Marching Band, and drum major Catina Santoro was nervous.
But Catina’s jitters soon went away and the band came away with several top trophies including first place overall.
"I was really, really, nervous and I think some of the band members were, too," Catina said. "As soon as we played the first note, we were fine."
While the band also took first place last year, the returning champs and Director Shaun Lindner were surprised nonetheless at their success.
"It wasn’t their best performance and I think they were surprised when they got first," Mr. Lindner said. "Even though it wasn’t their best performance, it was better than the other schools. They are happy a little surprised, but happy," he said.
The band scored a 72.95 to take the first place overall the highest score they’ve received, Mr. Lindner said.
In addition to the first place overall, the band was tops in percussion, visual effect and "overall effect."
Members of the band competed against four other schools with bands of the same size groups could have up to 44 members and Manville performed with 38 students.
Despite their success at the event, and the young musicians know they can do better. Junior Matt Kita rated their performance Saturday as "a decent performance."
"We weren’t really expecting first place and when we got it, we were all really excited," he said. "We felt that we really had to work at it. The next two weeks are going to be a lot of work until the 14th for a competition at Voorhees. We have to work a lot."
Stephany Ferrebee, a senior band member, was also surprised about the first place showing.
"I’m surprised we really did that good this early in the season," she said. "We all know that we still have a lot work to do and just because we got first, we’re not going to slack off and think we’re going to do good now. If we keep going the same rate we are now, we are going to rock the finals."
The band is performing the same 11-minute routine that they doit does at halftime at the football games. The show is titled "Suego" which means "fire" in Spanish and the songs include "Corrado," "Persidia" and the "Flight of the Condor."
With their first competition over, the band members can focus on their next events. Mr. Lindner said the band is scheduled to compete in four more competitions this season Oct. 14 at Voorhees, Oct. 21 at South Plainfield, Nov. 4 at Sayreville and the last one on Nov. 11 in Allentown, Pa.
"It’s an experience especially for the rookies," said Catina. "We are going to be really awesome for the final and we have a lot of good players. We are going to be a lot better than last year because we’ve improved a lot even from band camp."
At the Allentown competition, they will be going against 19 other school bands.
"Last year, we did four and this year we are doing five it should be good," Mr. Lindner said. "Every year since I got here, it progressively gets better and better. Adding more students every year, it gets bigger and better."

