On Tuesday, Brookwood’s very own Crimson Star Band traveled for an exhibition at Crimson Cavalcade at Tuscaloosa County High School. Crimson Cavalcade was a non-competitive exhibition of bands in which the staff of the University of Alabama’s Million Dollar Band provided critiques for each of the eight West Alabama bands, who performed their halftime productions. Following the exhibition, the Million Dollar Band performed to conclude the event.

This Saturday, September 24th, 2022, the Crimson Star Band will be competing in Pride of the Valley Marching Contest at Pinson Valley High School in Pinson, Alabama. This will be their first competition of the 2022-2023 school year. Brookwood High School’s band director, Eric Ardivino, comments, ”I think it (Crimson Cavalcade) was one of our best performances we’ve had this year. But based on the judges comments, we still have a lot to improve on.”

At any band competition, the competing bands are separated into categories such as: percussion, drum major, color guard, dance line, majorette, and wind instruments. Each category is scored based on their marching technique and how well they played. Scoring goes on a one to four scale, with one being the highest score and four being the lowest. Ones mean “superiors,” twos mean ”excellent,” threes mean “good,” and fours are known as “needs improvement.” Alongside scores, there are best in class trophies for individual classes (1A, 2A, 3A, and so on).

The Crimson Star Band is a 2A and will compete both within their class and against the entire list of 1-4A bands for other trophies. Tarrant (1A), Locus Fork(1A), Dora(1A), Moody(2A), Fultondale(2A), Gardendale(3A), Mortimer Jordan(3A), and Chelsea(4A) High School are just some of the many bands that will be competing this Saturday.

The Crimson Star Band has been very successful, scoring ones and twos at all of their competitions for the past three years. The band anticipates another successful year of competitions, putting in extremely hard work and diligence for their program.

The band will take the field at 2:20pm, with the awards ceremony taking place at 9pm.

Please consider giving your time and support to this fine arts program at Brookwood High School.