Niwot High's Band Leadership Academy founded

Last year Drum Major Mark Rokhlenko and Drum Major Lily Sykes identified a major opportunity for the Niwot High School Marching Band.

As section leaders in the band before becoming drum majors, they realized that drum majors are offered extensive training on how to lead. Niwot drum majors always attend Drum Major Academy at CU Boulder. But the section leaders of the marching band did not receive similar training.

In response, Sykes and Rokhlenko spent more than eight hours planning a detailed schedule, making slideshows, and practicing presentations to ensure that the band leaders would be better prepared for leading their sections. Niwot’s Band Leadership Academy was born.

Band Leadership Academy is a two-day event in which drum majors teach the section leaders both about the hard skills of leading the marching band, including musicality and marching technique, as well as the crucial soft skills of how to be a good leader.

This year, drum majors Kennah Brackett and Rokhlenko continued the effort, adjusting the schedule to fit the specific requirements of this year's leadership team. Rokhlenko has also made sure to have careful documentation of the Band Leadership Academy so that after he leaves NHS, future drum majors will still be able to run the Academy.

Rokhlenko and Sykes focused on maximizing the success of the training program. Other than the Band Leadership Academy, they felt there weren't many major advances in performances as a marching band. So, this year, Rokhlenko and Brackett are focused on major innovations.

For the first time, they will have a prop on the field--a 10-foot-tall popcorn bucket which soloists will climb into to perform, and the introduction of many new choreographed movements. “The season is just starting,” Rokhlenko said, “but it's looking like an exciting one to be sure.”

Both years Rokhlenko and Sykes carefully planned the summer Band Camp. The first year it lasted five days, but this year they successfully petitioned to expand it to seven days, in order to have an even more polished show than usual. The first five days of Band Camp consist of learning marching fundamentals including learning how to march, how to look while standing still, how to respond to commands, as well as learning both the show music which they play during halftime at football games, and the music which they play in the stands during football games.

The sixth and seventh days, which were added this year, were focused on starting to learn the show on the field. The band plays the show music while moving to specific spots of the football field, and learning where and when to move takes considerable practice. The band members were able to learn the first six positions of the show and have memorized the first piece of show music, which means that they are well prepared for the rest of the season.

They also focused on building a community, playing many get-to-know-you games, making sure everyone has someone to eat with during lunch, and organizing other social events such as a mini-dance party on Mondays.

Rokhlenko’s favorite parts of musical pieces are either ballads or blasts. “Ballads are the calm, the romantic, the spirited and emotional parts of music,” he said. “In this year's show music, that would have to be the Ratatouille break and the opening to ‘How to Train Your Dragon’. Blasts are when the band is allowed to just go crazy and fill the stadium with sound. I'm particularly excited to hear how the closer of ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ will sound on the field.”