After several previously successful competitions and halftime performances, the Bearden band is competing on a national level this year with Bands of America. Drum majors Mustafa Arkawazi, Daniella Rice, and Kiana Toms are helping the organization this year as they progress into the next level of competition.
Bands of America (BOA) is a national nonprofit that hosts championship programs and events across the country. Regional invitationals are not qualifying events, strictly time for developing collective experience and obtaining judging. Grand nationals is a qualifying event with 45 of the country’s top high school bands.
“This year, since it is our first year, we are choosing not to go to grand nationals,” Arkawazi said. “We are going to go to two major invitationals with grand nationals being a possibility in the future.”
Band directors Mrs. Megan Christian and Mr. Jamie Wilson decided to have the Bearden band join BOA after watching a show at East Tennessee State University with the band. A few months later, they entered the organization.
The band will compete by performing their halftime show, “Watercolor Dreams.” The show follows a child descending into sleep as he goes through a cycle of nightmares, being comforted, and eventually, acceptance of the nightmares. Bearden will compete in two invitationals this year that have a preliminary and final stage.
Although the seniors and drum majors will not compete at grand nationals, they are cherishing the change in competition and look forward to seeing how the program develops after they leave.
“We want to leave our legacy behind,” Rice said. “We’re the first BOA competing class as well, so I feel like the seniors are just pushing the underclassmen with their excitement for this since some of them don’t know what it’s like yet to compete.”
With the pressure of a national competition on their shoulders, the three drum majors have felt a higher level of expectation in rehearsal.
“There’s more on the line,” Toms said. “There’s more that we have to be accountable for, and I feel like there’s more work we have to do because we have to compete with people that have already been doing this.”
Added Mr. Wilson: “We were waiting for the culture to be ready to go. That is our hope, at least, that we are culturally at the point where we are ready to take that next step.”
Arkawazi, Rice, and Toms are not only hoping to leave their legacy on the Bearden marching band with the beginning of BOA, but also hope to represent the Class of 2024 well.
“There’s just so much momentum in this year’s senior class and so much potential of what this class can accomplish,” Arkawazi said.