Dear Athens Drive Band student and parent,

We are in the “home stretch” of the school year! The purpose of this letter is to provide 

information concerning important upcoming dates, many of which are NEW because we had to wait for COVID-19 restrictions to be lifted. Please read this letter carefully and let me know ASAP if there are any serious conflicts with these dates. 

 

Section Leader/Captain Interviews – Monday & Tuesday, May 3 & 4 3-5pm 

Any student who has spent at least 1 year in our marching band is eligible to interview for a leadership position in our Marching Band. These include section leader positions for all wind instruments, woodwind captain, brass captain, percussion captain, guard captain, and field crew captain. Sign-up sheets will be posted in the band room. Students will also need to complete a questionnaire that will be available soon. 

 

Drum Major Audition – Tuesday, May 11th, 3-5 pm 

Any student who has spent at least 1 year in our marching band is eligible to audition for Drum Major of our Marching Band. Former drum major Will Wakeford will lead a series of clinics that will prepare candidates for the audition on May 11th. Interested students must contact Will as he is putting together the list of dates/times for the clinics. It is mandatory that students participate in these clinics in order to audition. 

 

Leadership Positions Posted – Friday, May 14th, 2:18 pm 

Leadership positions will be posted both online and in the band room. 

Rising Freshmen Orientation Evenings – Monday & Tuesday, May 17 & 18 6:30-8:30pm 

 

All new leaders will be expected to LEAD these orientation evenings with prospective rising 9th graders. All other band members are welcome to join us. 

 

Percussion/Guard Orientation Evenings – Monday-Thursday, May 17-20 6:30-8:30 pm 

These evenings correspond to the evenings listed directly above; percussion and guard also meet on Wednesday and Thursday. 

 

Spring Concert – Wednesday, June 2, 7:00 pm 

We are going to present a concert featuring our Concert Band, Symphonic Band, and Wind Ensemble students. The dress will be “Sunday-nice.” This concert is only for those students coming to school IN-PERSON for the remainder of the semester. If you would like to perform in the concert, you must begin to physically come to school and attend rehearsals. 

 

Graduation – Thursday, June 10 8:00am & 10:00am 

[Rain date is Friday, June 11] 

Graduation will be held in our stadium and separated into 2 ceremonies: 8:00 am – for seniors with the last name beginning with A through J; 10:00 am for seniors with the last name beginning with K through Z. I NEED ALL CURRENT JUNIORS, SOPHOMORES AND SELECT FRESHMEN TO PERFORM FOR BOTH EVENTS. For this performance, I will permit ALL students to perform—even those who participated in the virtual academy! In addition–because our numbers are down this year due to the effects of COVID-19–we are asking the seniors who are NOT graduating in their respective ceremony to consider playing in the band for the other ceremony. In other words, seniors who are graduating at 10:00 am would play in the 8:00 am band, and seniors who are graduating at 8:00 am would play in the 10:00 am band. If our numbers looked larger, I would not ask this special request; however, I am trying to give each ceremony a full ensemble of performers. I sincerely appreciate whatever you can do to honor this request! [One perk is that it would allow our band seniors to see all their friends graduate!] 

We will have one rehearsal for this performance, on Tuesday, June 8th from 3:00-4:30 pm in or outside the band room. 

 

Our calendar is starting to get BUSY! Ya gotta Luv this! We are beginning to return more and more to sweet NORMAL! Please let me know of any conflicts with the above dates; thank you for doing your best to accommodate them! 

 

“Doc”