Eat, sleep, school, practice, memorize. That has been the life of the band members for several months. Before the school year even began, West’s band spent countless hours practicing their marching routine and memorizing sheet music for the upcoming University Interscholastic League (UIL) competition. The competition was held on Oct. 11 when the band performed their show, dubbed Adventures In Flight.

“It starts off about trying to catch a plane at an airport,” assistant band director Eric Petrinowitsch said. “The first section is ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ which is a pretty famous classical piece by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Then it goes into ‘A Thousand Airplanes on a Rooftop by Phillip Glass,’ which is more upbeat.”

The music, along with the way the band marches during the performance, was intended to tell a story.

“The first part is slow and simulates getting above the clouds,” Petrinowitsch said. “The second half is about turbulence and hitting rough patches in flight.”

The band contributed lots of their time into perfecting their show for UIL in order to keep up with the goals they had in mind.

“The goal this year is to get straight ones,” Petrinowitsch said. “If we get a one overall at UIL district, we qualify for UIL area which is at the end of the month.”

With this goal in mind, the band worked to meet the expectations they set for themselves.

“I’m okay with not necessarily getting our highest rating, which is a one, but I want to perform to our highest capability since UIL is early this year,” junior Kiana Shirmanesh said.

Corrections were made and the band went into the competition with high hopes.

“I feel prepared from working with the senior leaders and the band directors,” Shirmanesh said.

Their dedication paid off because the band received a first division rating and moved to Area on Oct. 25.

“We had marching band camp six hours a day for two weeks during the summer,” senior Rachel Mitchell said. “Now we practice every day after school for two hours, and then we have to spend time outside of school memorizing music.”

The band showed off all the strengths of their performance.

“The moves and forms we make are very tough,” Petrinowitsch said. “If we do well, we’ll get a lot of credit for it. There’s very high demand in what we are asking the kids to do.”

The high-skilled moves were clearly worth it since they received the first division rating.

“I’m excited that all our hard work paid off and that we qualified for Area and State,” Mitchell said.