The Beginner Band Solo Contest is on Saturday, March 29th at Coyle Middle School. The student performance times and room info can be found here.

The map on this info sheet is from last year; the performance rooms may be different, but this is all the info I have currently.

Student Information Sheet

All of the performance time requests were passed on to the contest hosts. With so many people requesting specific times, the schedule was done with as much assistance to those requesting times as possible. Thanks for being understanding as this contest includes ALL 12 middle school beginner bands and is a giant undertaking for our hosts at Coyle.

All Beginner Band (except percussionists) will have one more piano rehearsal this week with their accompanist. That schedule can be found here (tabs at the bottom for different accompanists/days).

We just received the performance times for our Advanced Bands UIL Concert & Sightreading Evaluations. All of the performances will take place at Rowlett High School. Detailed itineraries will be updated this weekend and will be posted here as soon as they are ready. We would love to have 3-4 parents join us as chaperones for each of these performances. If you are able, you can plan on 2 hours before/after the performance times for chaperone duties. Please let me know if you can help us in that capacity.

Tuesday, April 1

Symphonic Band performs at 9:00am

Honors Band performs at 3:20pm

Wednesday, April 2

Wind Symphony performs at 3:00pm

Families are welcome and encouraged to attend the performances if at all possible. Our students always perform better for a big audience and have worked so hard on this music for the past few months. If you are able to join us, please come! Make sure to leave enough time to check in and have your ID scanned to enter the auditorium. **Wind Symphony's performance is just after the high school dismissal, so plan to get there early if you are watching that performance.**

I wanted to make sure to thank you all for your patience and understanding as we have been understaffed for the past few months. I know I have personally been slow to respond to emails and have been slow to update grades. We are working hard to make sure the students are receiving the best music education they can get, and unfortunately, some other aspects our job have been slipping. If you reach out with a question and haven't heard from us in 48 hours, please reach out again. With 330 students in band, flu/cold season, Advanced Band solo contest, Beginner Band solo contest, the GISD Jazz Festival, Pre-UIL, UIL, and a trip to Indianapolis all within a 6-week span, we are spread thin. Thanks again for your understanding!

~Heather

Mrs. Becker is still in the running to be named America's Favorite Teacher! The contest goes on for about 6 weeks and has cuts along the way. The first cut happens today! If you feel inclined to vote for her, please use this link every day!

All Advanced Band students who did NOT perform their solo at the contest on March 1 are required to stay after school on Thursday, March 6 to makeup this performance/grade. We have hired judges to come in and listen to these students. The schedule for the performance can be found here. Students should dress to impress their judge and will have time to change clothes after school if necessary. Any student who did not perform their solo on March 1, but who does not see their name on this schedule needs to contact Mrs. Becker IMMEDIATELY. ALL ADVANCED BAND STUDENTS ARE REQUIRED TO PERFORM A SOLO!!!

Our Beginner Band students will begin practicing their solos with a piano accompanist during the school day the week of March 10th. They will have 2 rehearsals - one the week of March 10th and another the week of March 24th. The rehearsal schedule can be found here - there are different tabs on the bottom for our different accompanists. This schedule is a work in progress, but will be finalized by end of day on March 7th.

ALL spring band fees should have been paid by Friday, February 7th. If you are making monthly payments, please make sure that you have completed your 5th payment by Friday, March 7th. Please check your student's Presto account to see outstanding band fee amounts, make online payments, etc. Don't forget about school-owned instrument usage fees if your student is using a school-owned instrument or using them daily as a percussionist. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter!

The Beginner Band (optional) Spring Trip to Epic Waters and the Epic Music Festival will be on Monday, April 28th. This is a change from the original date!!!

The Advanced Band Spring Trip will be on Friday, May 2nd. The students will perform at the Peak Music Festival at the Murchison Performing Arts Center in Denton. Students who have chosen to attend the entire trip will go to Main Event in Lewisville before the performance. All academically eligible students who have chosen not to do the Main Event portion of the trip will take a later bus to the Murchison for the performance only.

See the list of Free Trip Earners HERE.

Final trip payments are due by Friday, April 18th!

If you signed up to chaperone the Beginner Band spring trip - please be aware that the date of that trip has changed. The trip is now on Monday, April 28th. If you can no longer chaperone on that date, please let me know ASAP so I can open up new chaperone spots.

If you would like to chaperone on either the Beginner Band or Advanced Bands spring trips, please use the links below to sign up for a chaperone spot. Details about cost and timelines are on the description in the sign-up link. There are a limited number of spots and they are first come, first served.

Beginner Band Spring Trip Chaperone Sign-up

Advanced Bands Spring Trip Chaperone Sign-up

Some of our Advanced Band sectional days have changed for the spring semester. You can see each band's schedule below. Please make arrangements to be here on your scheduled days (pay attention to the weekly schedule on the far right!). Thank you for your flexibility - we make changes due to athletics season/practice/game/meet days to avoid as many conflicts as possible.

Wind Symphony Spring Sectional Schedule

Honors Band Spring Sectional Schedule

Symphonic Band Spring Sectional Schedule

March

7 - Rehearsal until 5:30pm

8 - GISD Jazz Fest @ 1:30pm @ NFHS (click the link for the detailed itinerary)

28 - Rehearsal

April

4, 11, 21, 28 - Rehearsal

May

5, 9, 16 - Rehearsal

19 - HMS & SHS Cluster Jazz Concert

All Advanced Band students should return their concert uniforms ASAP! The uniforms should be washed in COLD water and HUNG to dry. They must be returned inside the garment bag WITH THE NAMETAG IN THE CLEAR POCKET!

You can watch our Percussion Ensemble performance for FREE on Friday, March 14th at 9:00am.

Use this link to sign up for an email reminder when the streaming goes live. You don't want to miss this performance - our students have been working hard since August to prepare for this once in a lifetime opportunity!

Spring Events

April 1 & 2 - Advanced Bands UIL evaluation

April 12 - Beginner Band All-Star Auditions

April 16 - Wind Symphony Honor Band recording concert @ Granville Arts Center - 6:00pm

April 22 - Beginner Band after school rehearsal (date change)

April 24 - Beginner Band after school rehearsal (date change)

April 28 - Beginner Band spring trip to Epic Waters (DATE CHANGE!!)

May 2 - Advanced Bands Peak Festival & spring trip

May 3 - Beginner Band All-Star clinic/concert for those students who earn a chair after April auditions

May 12 - ALL Bands Spring Concert

May 19 - Jazz Band concert

May 20 - Percussion Ensemble concert

This spring, the Wind Symphony will be recording for the Texas Honor Band contest. This is a competition that decides the best band in the state of Texas. We will compete against other CCC middle schools in the region, area, and state. We will be working on very difficult music, will record those pieces multiple times at different performances, and will submit the best recording to the contest. The winning band puts on a concert at the Texas Music Educators Association convention in San Antonio in February of 2026. It can be an intense process, but we believe working through the process will take our students to an even higher level of musicianship.

It’s not too early to get a jump-start on reaching out to corporate band sponsors! This year we have multiple levels of band sponsorships so potential donors can decide how they would like to support our band. Corporate sponsors in any of the four sponsorship levels will have their business logo included on our band website and in concert programs the entire school year. Feel free to print this flyer about the Hudson Band and the sponsorship levels and reach out to businesses in your community. Have your student ask a band director for copies of the flier too! Feel free to contact me at fundraising@hudsonband.org if you have any questions because I’m excited about fundraising and the opportunities we have this year!

After a rigorous judging process, our Wind Symphony Percussion Ensemble has been accepted to perform at the Music for All National Festival in Indianapolis, Indiana in March of 2025. We are thrilled to get to showcase these students on a national stage and can't wait to get started preparing for our performance. You can help by sharing info about our sponsorship levels, participating in fundraisers, and joining us for spirit nights at local restaurants this year. This is a huge honor for our program and excites us for other possible opportunities like this in the future!

The BEST investment you can make for your student's musical education is with PRIVATE LESSONS! We have the most wonderful group of private teachers around who are dedicated to providing quality one-on-one instruction to our students. Most of our teachers have been working with our students already this summer at our camps and have already told me how much they are enjoying getting to know your students. To sign your student up for private lessons, fill out this enrollment form and get it back to us ASAP. The teachers will schedule students as soon as they receive their enrollment form, so be first to get the most desired lesson time! Private lessons are $25 each week, payable directly to the private teacher. If finances are the only thing keeping your student out of lessons, we do have limited scholarship money available to help. This private lesson scholarship application is due Friday, August 23rd. We will issue scholarships at that time to as many students as possible, based on financial need. If you would like to contact the private teacher for your student's instrument, you can find all of our teachers' contact information on this page.

All band students should now have a band locker issued to them. Band lockers are for storing band instruments and band binders during the school day. We expect all students to take home both their binder and their instrument EVERY DAY because consistent practice is the best way to improve on an instrument. We do have combination locks available to students who request one, but we do not initially issue locks with the lockers. We HIGHLY RECOMMEND students to keep their locker locked all the time. Students are welcome to bring their own locks, however, they are REQUIRED to either share the combination with the band directors or give us a copy of the key. We do our very best to keep things safe, but the best way you can help yourself is to lock your locker and LABEL ALL OF YOUR BAND SUPPLIES!

Much like the beginner band year, as students continue with band there are new/different/extra supplies that will be needed. Many of these are the same supplies that we requested for this past year, so if your student will be an 8th grader, they likely already have these supplies. Please make sure your student has these supplies when we start school. The supplies on the list have been linked to Amazon to try and make it super easy for you - just add to cart and check out!

You can find all of the Beginner Band supply lists for each instrument on our band website. They're found on the handouts page, where there's also a list of our recommended music stores that can help you rent instrument or purchase necessary supplies. Don't wait to get your supplies ordered - it takes a few days for the stores to fill the orders and you don't want your student to miss out on the first sounds of the year with their class!

This year, we will be using a new fine arts management program called Presto. For our returning members, this is replacing Charms. This program allows us to keep track of band finances, inventory, music library, communicate with members, and much more. On Thursday, August 15th, all parents and students should have received a welcome email from Presto with details on how to log in. You will be able to see upcoming events, outstanding balances, make online payments, keep track of your student's school-owned uniforms and inventory, etc. We believe this system to be much more user friendly than Charms and are excited to transition to this new program!

You can watch a quick tutorial video below!

• Reams of copy paper
• Cases of bottled water
• Puppy pads (for emptying spit valves and saving the carpet)
• Candy/Stickers/Trinkets (to use as student incentives)

As many of you can probably relate to, I have become a bit overwhelmed by the amount of communication forms we are using. I have made some changes to my own notification settings on the apps. If you send me a message in Talking Points, you will notice an automatic message that lets you know your message has been received, but will be responded to on a school day during the hours of 8am-5pm. The same will happen to messages send on the Band app. The great thing about the Band app is that other parents and students have the ability to comment and answer questions as well (and I hope you all will chime in when you know the answers to questions that are being asked there).

The best way to contact the band directors is through email. Please know that we team-teach our classes and each of us only has one 45-minute conference period each day. If you haven't received a response to your message within 48 hours, please message us again. We all strive to respond within 24 hours, but that isn't always realistic. We are all setting boundaries to leave work at work (as much as possible), so we can be more present for our families at home. We spend many extra hours and days with your students, who we love, but our families must come first. Thank you so much for your understanding and for showing us grace as we put these boundaries in place.

For the remainder of this year, we will continue to share information through email (in both Presto and Skyward), post on Canvas and Skyward, and send through Talking Points and the Band app. At the end of the year, we will likely send out a survey to find out which form of communication works best for you. Our hope in the future is that we can simplify our processes and make our communication easier for everyone!

Heather Becker - Director

Dan Urban - Assistant Director

Ryan Neff - Assistant Director

Sue Manaois - Percussion Director

Website: www.hudsonband.org
Phone: 972-675-3070 ext. 52218
Facebook: facebook.com/hudsonmsband

Instagram: instagram.com/hudsonhawkband