The Roslyn High School Marching Bulldogs came home from Syracuse this week as the second-place band in their division in New York State. At the New York State Field Band Conference Championship on Sunday, November 1, the band scored 93.825 in the Small School Division 1 class with its show, Confined, and picked up two caption awards along the way, for Music and for High General Effect.

A state final under one roof

The championship is held indoors at the JMA Wireless Dome, the Syracuse University stadium, and it runs all day. More than 50 high school bands from across the Northeast competed this year. Each one performed a 10-minute musical and visual production on the field in front of the judges, the same format the bands work toward from the first day of summer rehearsal.

Getting to the dome is its own season. The New York State Field Band Conference ran 34 regional competitions around the state over eight weeks this fall, with nearly 60 bands taking part. Bands are sorted into six classifications by school size and competitive experience, so a band is scored against programs built like its own. Roslyn competes in Small School Division 1, and on Sunday only one band in that class finished ahead of it.

What the two caption awards mean

In field band, the overall score is built from several judged categories, and the conference also recognizes the top band in each one. Roslyn's two captions came in Music, which covers how the band sounds as an ensemble, and in High General Effect, which covers how well the whole production lands with the audience: the way the music, the drill and the visual design come together into one show. Winning both in the same night means the judges marked Confined highly on the sound and on the overall impact.

A welcome home on Monday

The band rode back to Long Island and arrived at school on Monday afternoon to a welcome from Superintendent Brown, along with faculty, staff and parents. The students were presented with a plaque marking the second-place finish.

For Roslyn High School, the result caps a fall season that has already included a run of recognition for its students, from the school's podcast program to its tennis players. The marching band's result is the one that took the most people to earn: every musician, every member of the visual team and every parent who drove to a regional competition on a Saturday night.

Follow the band

The Roslyn School District posts news about the Marching Bulldogs and its other programs on its district website.

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