Hoover High marching band captures 2019 state championship

Hoover High School’s competition marching band captured the 2019 state championship among 7A schools in Alabama.

Five 7A schools opted to compete in the second year of the marching band state championship competition, which was put together by a consortium of band directors and held on Nov. 2, Hoover High Director Ryan Fitchpatrick said.

Hoover received the highest scores for music, marching and general effect and won the state championship with an overall score of 93.4. Sparkman was second at 91.82, followed by Bob Jones at 90.78, Oak Mountain at 90.58 and James Clemens at 90.34.

Judges, who were from out of state, determined that Sparkman, which won the first state championship last year, had the best percussion section this year, while Bob Jones won the auxiliary (color guard and danceline) category.

Hoover’s 2019 competition show was called “The Gates,” and was a visual and musical representation of thousands of gates erected in New York City’s Central Park in 2005 as part of environmental art project by Jean Claude Cristo.

The show lasted 10 minutes and included three songs: “The Opening” by Philip Glass, the third movement of Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 4,” and “Last Midnight” from the soundtrack of Disney’s “Into the Woods” production.

Hoover’s 2019 competition marching band had 190 members and was led by drum majors Bailey Flores, Harry Tidwell and Nolan Rose.

“I’m so very proud of them,” Fitchpatrick said of the band. “It has been a wonderfully rewarding season. They kids have not only performed well and competed well, but our day-to-day growth throughout the season and the work ethic of the students has been second to none.”

In addition to winning the state championship, the 2019 Hoover band was named grand champions of a competition at Jacksonville State University on Oct. 12 and made the finals of the Bands of America regional competition in Atlanta on Oct. 26.