Band students hosted a swing dance and dinner on March 20 to give students a chance to have fun and listen to excellent music.

Musicians practiced for two weeks leading up to the event and were ready to play over 30 songs for their audience.

This was the first year the band decided to host a swing dance, and it was a definite hit.

Freshman Lucas Sherman was one of the musicians that participated in the event, and he thinks it was great.

“Everyone I talked to seemed to say they had a great time,” said Sherman.

The brass quintet, woodwind quintet, saxophone quartet and jazz band performed at this event and made sure to put on a great show. The entire ensemble was praised for how well it performed as well.

“The performance itself was noted by the attendance as being ‘professional-sounding’ and ‘well-rehearsed,’” said Sherman.

Freshman Emma Steinaur also participated in this event.

“All the people looked happy and like they were having fun,” said Steinaur. “The highlight was watching everyone dance with each other. Some of the people were getting really into it.”

Sherman was more excited about the other performers.

“In my opinion, the vocal features were the highlights of the night.  Brendan and Addie’s voices are truly amazing,” said Sherman.

The band and performers plan to make events like this annually, but they have certain aspects they want to improve.

“I think if people were given more time to learn about this event, more people would have gone,” said Sherman. “I hope we work harder to get the word out next time.”

Christian Poole, the band director, thinks the swing dance and dinner couldn’t have gone better.

“We had a pretty good attendance and turnout for this being the first year. A number of students came out,” said Poole. “Overall, the event was perceived well.”

Poole also thinks his students did well under the pressure of only two weeks to practice.

“It was very difficult to learn so much in so little time, but they did an excellent job,” said Poole.

Hopefully, more events like these will be organized to include students in.