Director's Message (Tom Landes)

2007-08 will be a school year filled with great promise for our students and the outstanding events at which they will perform. The Marching Band will be around 350 musicians and 60 Color Guard giving us again a marching unit numbering more than 400 members. This fall's competitive field show will be centered around music that was written for the story of "Romeo and Juliette" using themes from both classical and movie sources. Mr. Sherrill has done a superb job of putting together the musical elements that our show will contain. For those historians in the crowd, we will be playing a parade march that Arcadia hasn't performed in over 30 years... "The Purple Carnival" by Harry Alford. This has the potential of being one of the most exciting years, musically-speaking, in awhile. Along with the traditional events that we normally attend: Placentia Band Review, Etiwanda Field Tournament, Mt. Carmel Tournament, Chino Tournament, La Palma Band Review and the Arcadia Festival of Bands, we will also be attending a "Bands of Amercia" Field Tournament and ending our season in Pasadena at the Tournament of Roses Parade. The final performance of the Marching Band and Color Guard will be the Spaghetti Dinner in January.

For the concert bands, second semester holds a spring concert, district SCSBOA festival, and the Pop's Concert in May. Our percussion program has the unprecedented potential of expanding to 3 full drum lines for the spring competition season, and our Color Guard program will again have at least two, and perhaps three, Color Guard teams which will compete.

The students and staff look forward to seeing you at as many events as possible this year. You are the ones who help validate your students' hard work and committment to themselves, each other, and to the tradition of the Arcadia Music Program. One way that you can contribute to the music program is by being an active part of the Arcadia Music Club. This is a very positive way for parents to support all aspects of student involvement and to meet some other very supportive people.

Sincerely,

Tom Landes