Take note — the Crawfordsville High School Band is making a lot of noise.
In early May the Indiana State School Music Association notified the Crawfordsville Schools administration team that the CHS band program is one of the prestigious ISSMA All-Music Award recipients for the 2023-24 school year. CHS was one of only a few schools in the state to receive this award this school year.
CHS received this award by receiving gold ratings in five different categories this year.
In September the Marching Athenians took home a gold rating from the ISSMA Festival Class Marching Band Contest.
In January, Ruth Garcia and Georgianna Hernandez received gold ratings and qualified for state solo and ensemble.
Also in January the CHS woodwind choir and brass quintet received gold ratings and qualified for state.
In March, the CHS swing band received a gold rating in the ISSMA Jazz Band competition.
To cap off the award in April, the CHS wind ensemble received a gold rating with distinction and a perfect score in sight reading at the ISSMA Concert Band Contest.
This is the first time that any band, choir or orchestra from any school in the county has achieved this feat.
“I am extremely proud of this group of students,” said John Tebbe, CHS band director. “In September after accomplishing what I felt would be our biggest hurdle of getting gold at the marching band contest I approached the students with this goal. I explained to them what it meant and what we had to do and every single student was ready to aim for this challenge.
“We had the checklist on the board all year and celebrated big time each time we checked a box and at the concert band contest on top of earning a with distinction and perfect score in sight reading everyone had this in the back of their minds, it was a really great day. I am super excited to see what this group can achieve. They know what it takes to be great and with the addition of Brian Bartlett in our program at CMS next year I think this is a huge turning point for the band program at Crawfordsville Schools.”
