Danpod Posted October 7, 2012 Report Share Posted October 7, 2012 BOA Conroe Prelims Recaps BOA Conroe Finals Recaps I'll keep adding to this page as I break these numbers down. Prelims Top 10: 81.85 - The Woodlands 77.90 - Ronald Reagan 77.60 - Cedar Park 76.20 - Hendrickson 75.75 - Cedar Ridge 75.70 - Pflugerville 73.75 - Winston Churchill 73.15 - Dripping Springs 72.90 - Stephen F. Austin 72.50 - The Woodlands College Park -------------------------------------- 71.45 - Friendswood 71.10 - Brazoswood 70.85 - Cy-Fair 70.65 - Clear Brook 70.00 - James E. Taylor Prelims General Effect: 1. The Woodlands 2. Cedar Park 3. Ronald Reagan 4. Pflugerville 5. Hendrickson 6. Stephen F. Austin 7. Dripping Springs 8. The Woodlands College Park 9. Cedar Ridge 10. Clear Brook and Brazoswood The Woodlands won General Effect by 2.4 points. Yikes. Music 1 General Effect sub-cation went to The Woodlands. Music 2 General Effect sub-cation went to Cedar Park. Visual General Effect sub-cation went to Stephen F. Austin. Prelims Visual: 1. The Woodlands 2. Cedar Ridge 3. Cedar Park 4. Ronald Reagan 5. Hendrickson 6. Winston Churchill 7. Stephen F. Austin 8. Clear Falls 9. Dripping Springs 10. Pflugerville Crazy stuff here in the Visual Caption. The Visual Individual sub-caption went to Cedar Ridge. The Visual Ensemble sub-cation went to The Woodlands. Prelims Music: 1. The Woodlands 2. Ronald Reagan 3. Cedar Ridge 4. Cedar Park 5. Winston Churchill and Hendrickson 7. Pflugerville 8. Friendswood 9. Oak Ridge 10. McNeil Lots of variety towards the bottom of this list. McNeil, Oak Ridge, and Friendswood were all top ten in Music yet they all missed Finals. Cedar Ridge won the Music Individual sub-caption. The Woodlands won the Music Ensemble sub-caption by almost two full points. To say that The Woodlands dominated this contest is to say that the grass is green and water is wet. Looks like the top ten programs were pretty clear cut. I usually consider a one point gap "decisive". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynthia G Posted October 7, 2012 Report Share Posted October 7, 2012 Cedar Ridge .7 away from Cedar Park? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danpod Posted October 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 Finals Music: 1. The Woodlands 2. Cedar Park 3. Ronald Reagan 4. Cedar Ridge 5. Hendrickson 6. Winston Churchill 7. Pflugerville 8. Dripping Springs 9. The Woodlands College Park 10. Stephen F. Austin Finals Visual: 1. The Woodlands 2. Ronald Reagan 3. Cedar Park 4. Winston Churchill 5. Cedar Ridge 6. Hendrickson 7. Stephen F. Austin & Dripping Springs 9. The Woodlands College Park 10. Pflugerville Finals General Effect: 1. The Woodlands 2. Ronald Reagan 3. Cedar Ridge 4. Cedar Park 5. Hendrickson 6. The Woodlands College Park 7. Pflugerville 8. Dripping Springs 9. Winston Churchill 10. Stephen F. Austin Placement Ordinals (Take the placement numerals from Music, Visual, and General Effect captions to get a raw score. The best ordinal score would be 3, while the worst ordinal score would be 30.) 3 - The Woodlands 7 - Ronald Reagan 9 - Cedar Park 12 - Cedar Ridge 16 - Hendrickson 19 - Winston Churchill 23 - Dripping Springs 24 - Pflugerville & The Woodlands College Park 27 - Stephen F. Austin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FoobYen Posted October 8, 2012 Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 Placement Ordinals (Take the placement numerals from Music, Visual, and General Effect captions to get a raw score. The best ordinal score would be 3, while the worst ordinal score would be 30.) 3 - The Woodlands 7 - Ronald Reagan 9 - Cedar Park 12 - Cedar Ridge 16 - Hendrickson 19 - Winston Churchill 23 - Dripping Springs 24 - Pflugerville & The Woodlands College Park 27 - Stephen F. Austin Interesting how different that way^ of scoring affects the placements from what the final results actually were. The top places were the same but DS finished 9th last night as opposed to the 7th listed above. Conroe, TX 2012 Regional Results Finals Results 81.95 - The Woodlands H.S., TX 78.55 - Ronald Reagan H.S., TX 77.75 - Cedar Park H.S., TX 77.05 - Cedar Ridge H.S., TX 75.70 - Hendrickson H.S., TX 72.65 - The Woodlands College Park H.S., TX 72.55 - Pflugerville H.S., TX 72.55 - Winston Churchill H.S., TX 72.40 - Dripping Springs H.S., TX 69.80 - Stephen F. Austin H.S., TX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danpod Posted October 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 Interesting how different that way^ of scoring affects the placements from what the final results actually were. The top places were the same but DS finished 9th last night as opposed to the 7th listed above. The ordinal system is more of a UIL style of dealing with placements. For instance, the difference between 1st and 2nd Place in a UIL Contest could theoretically be hundreds of points, but all you will see on the recap sheet is either 1 or 2. This message has been brought to you by the phrase My Brain Freakin' Hurts!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rubisco Posted October 8, 2012 Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 I'm going to spam this forum with my opinions just like I spammed the BOA forums! Bwahaha! Thoughts on finals in no particular order (copied and pasted): Hendrickson performed a show called Doctor Atomic, featuring, of course, music from the Doctor Atomic Symphony by John Adams, as well as some music by Prokofiev, Tchesnokov, and Sting. The staging was so elaborate in this show! Elements from the periodic table decorated the perimeter of the field, and off to the left were two clocks counting down the time until nuclear doomsday. The colorguard was all dressed in labcoats, which they removed early on. At the front, there was some old fashioned professor-type at a chalkboard furiously scribbling away. An Oppenheimer impersonator, perhaps? There is so much going on in this show that you need to watch it more than once to take it all in. At the end, the sirens go off, and the clocks start to plummet. I was thoroughly entertained. Some strong playing and marching as well. This is a band to keep an eye on. Pflugerville performed a show called Multiplicity, featuring the music of Danielpour and some others. This is a really strong playing group! The show itself was sort of reminscent of PCEP 2002, if only because they played Urban Dances. The guard was dressed in black, but had different colors hidden underneath that they revealed from time to time. Different sections of the band also revealed different colors at one point, and during the big hit of the ballad, all of these colors came together to really neat effect. At the end of the show, in a Reagan-esque gesture, the band returns to their opening set, with only one color remaining on a lone colorguard performer. I think this group may have underplaced a little. They were really good! The Woodlands College Park got the most standing ovations of the night! They performed a patriotic show called The 4th, featuring the music of Hazo, Ward, Hughie, Don, and Tchaikovsky. Lots of patriotic-sounding music, of course! The ballad and the swing section before the final movement are probably the two strongest sections. For the ballad, they played America the Beautiful. The woodwind ensemble at the front played with tons of musicality, as did the rest of the band. At the end of the ballad, the band shouts a segment of the pledge of allegiance, which got TWCP their first standing ovation. The second one came at the end of the very well-played swing section, when half of the audience thought the show was over. Heh. The third and final one was at the end, of course, after they played the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky. TWCP's finals performance was head and shoulders above their prelims performance, where they tore musically during the swing section. (The low brass on the far right of the field started rushing ahead of the woodwind melody, and the first hit of swing section wasn't played together as a result.) Visually, I think this group could use some work, as there were several parts that I thought looked very dirty (i.e. people outside of files during stand-still segments.) I loved the Rosie the Riveter colorguard outfits. It was a nice touch. Dripping Springs was a group that I was very excited to see. They were second last year to Cedar Park at the Texas UIL Class 4A Championships. The show this year is called Silence and features the music of Samuel Barber. They play with a ton of musicality, tons of sensitivity. I think there were some segments where they could have played with a little bit more volume and power, but because of their size they may have been at a little bit of a disadvantage. Still, the Adagio for Strings segment was so chilling. That low brass sound is warm, warm, warm. In that chilly Texas night, you just wanted to wrap yourself in that sound. Lots of neat moments incorporated the theme. They marched the first part of their drill in complete silence before hitting the opening statement (Overture to the School for Scandal). Right before they hit that last big chord of their show, they shush the audience, which was unexpected and a cool effect. It was a very solid performance. I hope we see them again soon! Churchill had probably the coolest color palette of the night. That's the first thing I recognized. Lots of green and red and... silver, was it? I actually don't remember all of the colors, but I do remember that I liked them! Heh. The show is called Invasive Beauty and features the music of Bobby McFerrin, David Holsinger, The Gotan Group, and Scott McAllister. The field was decorated with venus flytraps. I got a sort of femme fatale vibe from the colorguard that was really fun. I think at one point they all circled around a lone band member and converged, ensnaring him. That was cool! On the whole, I think this show is much better performed than the one they did last year. Like virtually all of the groups in finals, I thought they played strongly. There were a lot of exciting, fast-paced moments. I would note that it seemed a little bit on the shorter side as far as length. Still more to come, I bet. I think last year there was some talk about Churchill being in a decline. I don't think that showed much at all last night. Cedar Park just performs so strongly that they're always in contention. I think they were the first to perform among the group that I thought in my mind was probably the top 3. The show is called Celebracion and features La Fiesta Mexicana, Sensemaya, Adios Nonino, and Danzon No. 2. It was easy to see why the music ensemble judge had this group first in finals. They just play so powerfully, but without letting their good tones go out of the window. It looked pretty good visually, too! I think there are some issues with the music design. I like shows where if you were to pick up all the music a band is playing off of the music sheets it would all stick together. I think there are parts where CP doesn't accomplish this. The pre-show lead-in to the first big hit, for instance, doesn't really mesh with the big hit that follows. There are moments like this riddled throughout the show. This could be why they were docked a bit in music GE. I also think they could do a better job (in parts) communicating the music to the audience, since some of it seemed a bit dry. Of course, there were other parts where they communicated fantastically. Towards the end of their opener there's a screamer of a chord that just gave me goosebumps. That's trademark CP! They need more moments like that! (Although not all screamer chords! ) Cedar Ridge performed a show called Flock, featuring the music of James Horner, Karl Jenkins, Ryan George, Rick Rodriguez, West Fox, Modest Mussorgsky, and Coldplay. Whew! That's a lot of music to get into one coherent show, but they managed it very well. Obviously, there's some sort of bird theme at play here. In one particularly neat moment in the opener, the band was in a wing-like drill set that shimmered with clever visuals. In another audience favorite moment, the band knelt to the ground and bobbed their heads against the field to the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks by Mussorgsky. The first thing I think we all noticed about this group, though, was the power with which they played. It just melted your face off. Maybe some clarity was lost as a result, but it was exciting nevertheless. The ballad in which the girl sang Coldplay's Fix You to band accompaniment was really beautiful. Emotionally affecting moments like that were part of the reason I ranked them ahead of Cedar Park in music GE. Reagan perfomed a show called Let It Shine, featuring, *I think*, 1000 Airplanes on the Roof by Philip Glass. The music is just so cool. That's the best way to describe it. It pulls you in at the beginning and doesn't let go. Towards the end of the first movement, the whole band turns on a little green light on their uniforms. At night, this was very eye-popping. The guard also dons futuristic visors with green lights. Before the lights start to get distracting, they shut them off, which is good. The cool, fast-paced moments of the first part of the show are balanced by more tender, beautifully played moments later on. Of course, as many of you know by now, the plume changes have returned, this time in the form of a plume change battle between two groups on the field. This was another audience favorite moment. I'm wondering how it must have felt to Kevin Nix sitting up in the judging booth watching something he probably helped invent. Flattered? Annoyed? Probably not annoyed, since he (and the other music GE judge) had Reagan in 2nd place. Of course, I agreed with them. This was a top-notch show. It glimmered with bits of the old Reagan we all know and love. Stephen F. Austin has had a rough time these last couple of months, losing both their head band director and their dance team director, and then having to scramble to replace them. Their show is called Coming into the Light and features the Verdi Requiem and Appalachian Spring, among other pieces. The good news is that, design-wise, this looks and sounds like a typical Stephen F. Ausin show. The bad news was that they weren't as far along last night as usual. This was made abundantly clear by the fact that towards the end of the show the Angels stopped dancing and just marched around. I can't recall the last time that's happened, although I might not have been paying close attention. The show opened with the explosive Verdi Requiem, but they seemed to be struggling a bit with it. The drill just wasn't nearly as clean as usual, nor was the music up to their standard. Like I said earlier, there were several points where they overblew past good tone quality. The ending in particular was sort of heartbreaking, because it sounded like they were really trying to turn on the fire, but they overdid it and the sound suffered. But, you know what, this is a group that works their tails off, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see some drastic improvements by late season. Like I said earlier, I thought The Woodlands was on a different level, and the judges seemed to agree. What were the scores like again? Like a 3 and a half point gap in finals, and a 4 point one in prelims? The show is called The Promise of Living and features the music of Aaron Copland and David Diamond. I'm still not completely sold on the narration, since I think it could be even more effective without being soo... I don't know... cliched? But they made up for it with music that was just so beautifully played that it was overwhelming. There are lots of exciting moments, too, like at the end of the opener when they added some ferocious brass licks, with soaring, trilling mellophones. It was jaw-dropping to experience that live. I would comment that there were parts (like toward the end of the opening statement) where some high brass stuck out a bit, but it didn't seem as severe live as in the videos I saw. As for the visual, I think it has a much better sense of space than last year's show did, with longer, more elegant lines (like that opening set!). Also, the drill in the ballad is actually interesting this year! The field itself is decorated with some old-fashioned-looking letters that are incorporated into the drill. The letters are opened as the show progresses. One letter wasn't opened, leading me to believe the show isn't done yet. The show closes with Mvmnt. 4 (I think) from Symphony No. 2 by David Diamond and a stirring reiteration of The Promise of Living by Aaron Copland, complete with glorious, intoning trombones reminiscent of Lassiter 2002. They really "brought it home", as they say. After it was over, it was clear nobody was going to beat them this time around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Szuzzah Posted October 8, 2012 Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 Also, that is a close separation between TW and CP for the music caption. I honestly didn't expect it to be that close between the two. It also comes across as odd that merely a week ago at Denton, CP dominated individual music, but they didn't do as hot in individual music at Conroe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marchingfan27 Posted October 10, 2012 Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 So what is GE really? I'm still confused on how you judge GE, cuz I'm a Churchill Alumni and when I see Churchill getting 4th in visual and 6th in music, but then 9th in GE, how does that work exactly? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
longhornsax Posted October 10, 2012 Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 Gotta admit, I knew Cedar Ridge was gonna be good in the future, especially after seeing them at area last year, but I didn't know they were gonna be this good, this soon...Watch out for this band. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TxRaider13 Posted October 10, 2012 Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 So what is GE really? I'm still confused on how you judge GE, cuz I'm a Churchill Alumni and when I see Churchill getting 4th in visual and 6th in music, but then 9th in GE, how does that work exactly? You're about to open up a box that still can't give you a complete answer, just sort of push you in the right direction to understanding it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abbie123 Posted October 10, 2012 Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 My band director told me it was the Wow effect (visually clean, musically moving example: the difficult of the drill, the dynamics present, how hard the show is to perform, how cool does it look...), how well does the show fit together based on a particular theme? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitewing09 Posted October 10, 2012 Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 Did anyone else notice the huge jump in Reagan's scores from last week? They went from the bottom of the "finals" bands of BOA Denton to the top of BOA Conroe... beating one of the top bands (CP) from the previous week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenon Posted October 10, 2012 Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 Reagan was really really dirty at Denton but had basically the whole show on the field. I bet they spent the whole next week doing tons and tons and tons of cleaning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rubisco Posted October 10, 2012 Report Share Posted October 10, 2012 (edited) Did anyone else notice the huge jump in Reagan's scores from last week? They went from the bottom of the "finals" bands of BOA Denton to the top of BOA Conroe... beating one of the top bands (CP) from the previous week. Yep. That's probably the biggest shocker of the competition. And it happened in both rounds! To be honest, I could see Cedar Ridge possibly overtaking Cedar Park as well (at BOA SA). Notice how CR beat out CP in GE in finals. That's pretty major, especially for such a young group! Also, I think Daniel mentioned earlier about how The Woodlands was supposedly two full points ahead of second place in the ensemble music sub-caption in prelims. That's not correct, although The Woodlands did have a comfortable .8 point lead over Reagan in it. (Kevin Nix popped them a 17.8, which is nearly a late season box 5 score! Reagan also scored extremely well with a 17.0.) Edited October 10, 2012 by Rubisco Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marchingfan27 Posted October 12, 2012 Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 I just finished watching the Woodlands show, and this year they have letters written from a girl named Sarah, in Churchills 2007 Letters Home show, the first letter written is TO a girl named Sarah, both shows featuring the same clarinet Solo from Copland (although Woodlands uses it as their motif) coincidence? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rubisco Posted October 12, 2012 Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 I just finished watching the Woodlands show, and this year they have letters written from a girl named Sarah, in Churchills 2007 Letters Home show, the first letter written is TO a girl named Sarah, both shows featuring the same clarinet Solo from Copland (although Woodlands uses it as their motif) coincidence? There are similarities. Still, I have a hard time believing that Jon Vanderkolff, who designs for TW and is the staging director/choreographer of Blast!, was paying very close attention to that Churchill show when it came out. It's more likely that he stumbled upon Copland's Letter from Home and thought, "Ooh! TW can do a show about letters this year!" TW's show themes often are inspired by the music they play (i.e. Uninvited and Hide and Seek). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xenon Posted October 12, 2012 Report Share Posted October 12, 2012 There are similarities. Still, I have a hard time believing that Jon Vanderkolff, who designs for TW and is the staging director/choreographer of Blast!, was paying very close attention to that Churchill show when it came out. It's more likely that he stumbled upon Copland's Letter from Home and thought, "Ooh! TW can do a show about letters this year!" TW's show themes often are inspired by the music they play (i.e. Uninvited and Hide and Seek). Exactly. Similar to how both Marcus and Owasso did shows called Fowl Play the same year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitewing09 Posted October 14, 2012 Report Share Posted October 14, 2012 At this competition Cedar Ridge scored higher than it's BOA SA 2011 score. Did they peak early or will they be scoring in the finalist range at BOA SA this year? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rubisco Posted October 14, 2012 Report Share Posted October 14, 2012 At this competition Cedar Ridge scored higher than it's BOA SA 2011 score. Did they peak early or will they be scoring in the finalist range at BOA SA this year? I'd be very surprised if Cedar Ridge misses finals at San Antonio. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Szuzzah Posted October 16, 2012 Report Share Posted October 16, 2012 At this competition Cedar Ridge scored higher than it's BOA SA 2011 score. Did they peak early or will they be scoring in the finalist range at BOA SA this year? Interestingly, this reminds me of Vandegrift at the same competition 2 years ago. Relatively obscure band coming out and producing a high ranking at a big competition. I'm finding it difficult to convince myself that they'll grow enough through October to prove themselves in SA. I'd love to be wrong, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
longhornsax Posted October 16, 2012 Report Share Posted October 16, 2012 Interestingly, this reminds me of Vandegrift at the same competition 2 years ago. Relatively obscure band coming out and producing a high ranking at a big competition. I'm finding it difficult to convince myself that they'll grow enough through October to prove themselves in SA. I'd love to be wrong, though. I wouldn't say either Vandegrift or Cedar Ridge were necessarily obscure...i mean that in a sense they didn't necessarily come out of no where. Both are really new schools and had a strong base to really be great bands when they grew up. The parallels are there, but to me the difference in Cedar Ridge's development is the shear size of their band. Vandegrift performed well in Houston, placing highly, and then I think barely missed BOA Finals. Cedar Ridge takes a very similar course, but I think they're size will help them slip into finals at SA. Of course, I haven't even seen the show, so that's total speculation, but we'll see Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitewing09 Posted October 16, 2012 Report Share Posted October 16, 2012 (edited) I think Reagan is definitely gnat final's material this year. Edited October 16, 2012 by whitewing09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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