Christiansburg High earns Superior rating at Virginia State Marching Assessment

Photo courtesy of Chris and Susan Tuck

The CHS Marching Band performed in the VA State Marching Assessment this weekend. This is less of a competition and more of an actual assessment of the level of performance each band gives. There are seven judges with three adjudicating music, two adjudicating visual and two adjudicating the overall General Effect of the show.

Each judge scores us based on a rubric of our performance and their score translates to a rating. A score of 85-100 gets a rating of ‘I’ or SUPERIOR which is the highest possible rating, 70-84.5 is a ‘II’ or EXCELLENT and so on through a rating of ‘V’ or POOR. Each judge’s rating is then tallied to get the final overall rating for the band.

The CHS Band put on one of its best performances in years. I was extremely proud of them before they even came off the field, let alone when we received our rating. We received an overall rating of SUPERIOR with five judges giving us a rating of an ‘I’ and two of them giving us a ‘II’. An ‘I’ or SUPERIOR is the highest rating a band can receive and is the first half of our band program being recognized as a Virginia Honor Band.

CHS has received the honor-band recognition seven times (four in the past five years) and will try for it again this year with the second half coming at Concert Assessment in March where the Advanced band will perform for a rating. This is not an easy award to achieve as both Marching and Advanced bands must receive a rating of SUPERIOR in the same school year to receive VA Honor Band recognition.

Saturday was the first time in weeks that the band was at 100 percent strength as we have been fighting sickness throughout the band the last month. That coupled with the fact that 50 percent of the group is brand new to marching band, everyone has had to work extremely hard to make this year so successful.

Thanks to all of you who came out to support us and who offered words of support and encouragement.

– Written by David Miller, band director, and submitted by Andrew Newton

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