Marching band’s 15th annual Twilight concert kicked off in the gym this year on Aug. 28, bringing the Clark, Vines and Plano band departments together for collaborative performances.

“It’s really great how we’re all at different schools, but we’re all one team because we do these combined events and really get to know Clark and Vines bands,” senior drum major Kyla Radke said.

With at least 50 students present from each school, the concert featured around 15 songs between the bands. The performances were centered around the “Kokopelli Dances” theme for the senior high, the “Wired” theme for Vines, and the “Peculiar” theme for Clark.

“Each of the groups have been working on their shows as part of their summer band camp program, and they continue that through the fall semester, so the Twilight concert brings all the bands together,” assistant band director Michael Hernandez said.

This year, all three bands were able to perform their full marching shows, something that they were particularly excited about.

“Since school started earlier, we actually pushed the Twilight concert to later,” assistant band director Mark DeHertogh said.

He said the bands normally did not get the chance to perform more than the first half of their marching show.

“So to me, It was really great just hearing all three programs perform their entire show,” Hertogh said.

It takes a lot of dedication, time and hard work to pull off a concert of this size.

“We have after school rehearsals three days a week, and they are usually until around six,” junior band student Jessica Yang said.

Even with the countless rehearsals, however, the pressure to perform well prior to the concert didn’t fade.

“The day leading up to it was really stressful,” color guard co-captain Kasi Schiffer said. “We were all practicing and getting our work done, and we would have little blips and mess-ups here and there.”

Despite everyone’s concerns, the performance wrapped up well.

“It was a lot of fun,” Radke said. “It turned out well, so we’re really happy.”

The band already has many exciting events coming up soon such as pre- UIL contest in McKinney at their new stadium on Oct. 13.

“The following week is our Region- UIL contest, and the week after that will be the Area band contest,” Hernandez said. “Depending on how that goes, we’ll determine if our competitive season
continues into November at the state level.”