Schools' competitive marching band season canceled

CLOVIS — The Clovis High marching band’s eight-year winning streak at the Zia Marching Band Fiesta is on hold, and the entire competitive band season with it, due to COVID-19 pandemic concerns.

The decision to cancel the schools’ competitive marching band season and all band camps and marching band activities was announced in a Tuesday letter from Clovis Municipal Schools Music Education Director Brandon Boerio.

In the letter, Boerio said the news was undoubtedly disappointing to students and parents alike, but said the program’s overarching reasoning and desire was to keep students safe.

He noted the department began the month with “more questions than answers, and (we) have few resources on which to draw.”

The two certainties Boerio highlighted were troubling:

n Based on conversations with band staff, nobody could concoct a scenario where band camps would be both safe and provide meaningful instruction.

n Also, the University of New Mexico’s music department canceled the Zia Marching Band Fiesta last week. “We anticipate other regional and Bands of America events will be canceled as well,” Boerio said.

The Zia event is generally regarded as the state championship for marching band, which does not fall under the umbrella of the New Mexico Activities Association.

Clovis High Band Director Bill Allred noted the stringent safety requirements create so many challenges, including maintaining 6 feet of distance, requiring kids with instruments to wear face coverings and distilling a band of 240 students into groups of five to 10 students per teacher who attend school two days a week and go online the other three.

“That’s impossible to be successful,” Allred said, “not even speaking of being competitive at all.”

Allred said the planned 2020 competition piece was about 75% written, with the colorguard flags in stock and uniforms designed. But that will either be delayed a year or shelved completely — Allred isn’t sure which one at this point — and the priority will be music education over competition and visuals.

“We’re going to persevere,” Allred said. “We’re going to get through this.”

Boerio said band leaders still look forward to meeting with students in August to help them develop music skills and will still hold a colorguard class, and a key focus is to have fun with music as the state competition aspect will be absent for the year.

“For both band students and colorguard students, we are going to explore avenues to present online performances for our community,” Boerio said. “As far as other fall marching band activities are concerned, we will continue our conversations, review information as it becomes available, and make further decisions closer to the start of the school year.”

A national coalition of arts organizations, Boerio said, is commissioning a study on the risks of droplet transmission in music and other performing arts, and results are expected in mid-July. While that was too late to weigh in on CMS’ decision to cancel the competitive season, the information may be incorporated into the school year.