High school marching bands compete for Capital Cup

RALEIGH -- Pomp and precision, pageantry and playfulness, not to mention more than a few proud parents, were all part of Saturday's Capital City Band Expo at Sanderson High School.

Bands from across the state gathered on a sunny, windy afternoon at the North Raleigh high school's football stadium to compete for the Capital Cup, awarded to the band with the most points at the end of the daylong competition.

The Capital City Expo was started 11 years ago by a former Sanderson High School band director, said Creighton Flowers, the event's current director.

"It has grown and become quite a large show," Flowers said. "It's really one of the biggest band competitions in North Carolina."

Hundreds of band members, their parents and supporters filled the bleachers to watch 18 bands compete. The bands were divided into four classes, depending on their size, and judged by various criteria, including music presentation, marching precision and percussion.

Part of the proceeds from the competition are donated the The First Note Program, established by the Sanderson High School Band to provide instruments and instruction to children who can't afford them, band expo chairman Dave Mykins said.

The competition attracts high school bands from Morehead City in the east to as far west as Lincoln County, northwest of Charlotte. Ten bands were from the Triangle.

There were a few dropped flags and some unintentional squeaks from the woodwinds, but the only flat note was a wet field that had to be covered with straw between performances. Organizers canceled the evening finals because of the soggy field.

The top bands in each category usually compete again for the judges, with one band walking away with The Capital Cup. Instead, organizers planned to award the cup to the band with the most points at the end of the regular competition.

There were notable highlights during the competition: a visually stunning presentation by East Lincoln High School with their Polynesian-inspired music; West Craven High School of Vanceboro with their color guard marching onto the field in fanciful shower robes before launching into a frenetic jitterbug; and Raleigh's Enloe High School's West African percussion.

Perhaps no band in the competition pushed the envelope as much as Raleigh's Millbrook High School, with its presentation "The Power Of One." The band executed music that at times sounded like 1960s free-form jazz. There were elements of theater and "scene" changes through the use of flags, and the color guard flowed with modern dance movements. The piece was layered with voices as disparate as Neil Armstrong's words when he made his first step on the moon and snippets from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

The kids were jazzed up.

"It's fun, but you got to have passion," said Adam "AJ" McKnight, a drummer and 10th-grader at Garner High School. "You got to be willing to give it your all, and it can get you into college."