On Feb. 11, the FHS band program left for a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. While in Disney, band members attended a workshop where they got to work with a world-famous musician. 

“The workshop was such an amazing experience,” sophomore Macy Wright said. “We got to learn a lot of fun music and we had the opportunity to work with a professional in the recording studio. Overall it was very cool and we received some really good suggestions to help us improve.” 

While at the workshop, the band members received the opportunity to record a piece of music for a cartoon.

“The workshop was about two and a half hours,” senior Josh Maier said. “For about 45 minutes, a professional worked with us on sight-reading. After we took a break, we worked on another piece of music that we got to record for a cartoon. We were given a video of the cartoon with our recording behind it for the band to keep.” 

This Disney trip was funded by fundraisers organized by the band programs and parents volunteered to chaperone the event.

“Our boosters were a big help,” Band Director Patrick Conaton said. “The parents who chaperoned took time off of work to come on the trip and they also helped with fundraisers for the trip. They were all super nice and helpful and it wouldn’t have worked without them.” 

While in Florida, the band spent most of their time enjoying the Disney theme parks, as a lack of available workshops made it difficult for them to do more performances.

“I would like to perform more on future trips,” Conaton said. “Because of the pandemic there were so many bands traveling, so it was harder to do more performing. Next time we go on a trip I would like to be able to do at least one performance a day.” 

The trip to Disney gave the band an opportunity to spend more time with one another and was a great bonding opportunity. 

“My favorite part of the trip was probably going on rides with like 20 people,” senior Josh Maier said. “Just having large groups together on rides was a lot of fun and a great bonding experience for the band.” 

Conaton would like to be able to do trips every two years. Every four years he would like to take another trip to Disney and the other trips would be in other states that have workshops for the band to attend.