For 23 Years, Band Camp Fine Tunes Middle Schoolers
For 23 years, the DMPS Summer Honor Band Camp has supported middle school student-musicians from throughout Des Moines.
Today they put on the finishing touches. Tonight they put on a show.
The 23rd annual DMPS Summer Honor Band Camp is coming to its crescendo. It’s opening night and closing night in one fell swoop of a program ranging from Ben E. King to Beethoven.
By turns the primary, intermediate and advanced ensembles paraded into the auditorium at Hoover High School Friday morning and practiced the logistics of processing onto and off of the stage; of taking their bows.
While Jim Goodwin from Weeks Middle School put everyone in their places a kid in the sax section gnawed on his nails. Next to him was a baritone almost as big as the kid wearing the jazzy fedora who would play it. Over in the trumpets the San Francisco Giants t-shirt playfully poked at the Drake Relays t-shirt. One stood up that read “I’ve got a French horn and I’m not afraid to use it.” Some giggles were stifled; others escaped. There were tunings and scales and other instrumental warm-up calisthenics. And then it was time.
“One, two, you know what to do…” Goodwin said, and waved his magic wand. Right on cue the merry, restless bunch of middle schoolers broke into the music they’ve been practicing for the last two weeks. They sounded ready for tonight’s 7:00 concert.
“I love band camp,” said Meredith 8th grader Ivy Schmit, a percussionist in her third year here. How come? The answer to that question was a grin full of braces.
Veteran camp staffers like Goodwin and Merrill’s John Morgan and DMPS retirees Scott Davis and Camp Director Andy Hansen love band camp, too.
“There will be parents here tonight that I taught 30 years ago,” said Hansen. “Every camp is different, but they’re also all the same.”
Goodwin, dressed in jeans and the Spiderman-themed t-shirt from a past camp (this year’s official shirt taps the current Jurassic World craze) instead of tux and tails, stops the music to tell the basses they need to be louder.
“Two guys aren’t here. They’ve got baseball tournaments,” someone pipes up from the back row.
“Bummer,” said the maestro. “You’re still gonna have to play.”
Other fine points included his reminder not to “tap your feet too loudly. We don’t want the audience to hear that during the soft parts.”
“This is a band,” he reminded the few who forgot to bring essentials to the stage. “You’re gonna need your instrument. You’re gonna need your music.”
Places everybody. Finish your pizza. Ditch the t-shirts in favor of your concert attire. Knot those ties, tuck those shirttails. It’s showtime! “One, two, you know what to do…”
