In their first competition since 1994, the Palisades High marching band and drum line took second place in the Granada Hills Highlander Band Tournament on November 8. PaliHi, with 35 musicians, competed in Division III (a category based on the number of performing musicians), after overcoming a late start leaving the Palisades. When the students arrived at the school parking lot on a Saturday morning to board the bus, there wasn’t one. When it failed to show up, students scrambled to call parents for rides and drum major Evan Warfel assigned car pools. One parent drove a minivan filled with two bass drums, two tympani drums, two sousaphone cases, the hanging cymbal and stand, the glockenspiel and its stand’and one passenger. ‘We made it in time for warm-up,’ said Arwen Hernandez, the school’s new marching band director. ‘The parents were so supportive and wonderful, and the kids acted as if they’ve been doing this forever.’Watching their performance, no one would have known that just a couple of hours before, we didn’t know if we were going to make it.’They were amazing.’ ”It was really a great day and a testament to Arwen Hernandez,’ said Santa Monica Canyon parent John Warfel.”To accomplish this in such a short time is quite remarkable.” The band’s next competition is December 13 in Palmdale. Long-range plans include adding members and raising money to buy additional instruments and a trailer for the band’s equipment. ‘Our percussion class enrollment is currently limited by the number of instruments we have,’ Hernandez said. ‘We are fundraising to purchase concert tubas and a marimba.’
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
