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MHS band, choir and orchestra headed to Orlando

Submitted Photos The Minot High School band has performed at various events in North Dakota this year but will get an opportunity to perform in another state during the traditional music trip to Orlando, Fla., said band director Evan Meiers.

The Minot High School music department’s trip to Orlando, Florida, June 1-7, has been a long time coming.

“The trip has been canceled the past two years and I was supposed to go the past two years,” said Elizabeth Parton, a senior who is a member of the orchestra and the band.

The trip, which students do fundraising for throughout high school with events such as Chuck Full of Music, had to be called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now they are finally going to get to go and members of the band, choir and orchestra will all go together. In past years, the different departments went during alternate years but the directors of the different departments decided to take all three departments to save money and to ensure that the students all had the opportunity to go on the trip. Parton is looking forward to sharing the experience with some of her friends from choir as well as in the band and orchestra. There will be 100 students along on the trip and 15 chaperones. The band will perform at Disney World and the choir and orchestra will perform during Orlando Music Fest, an event that draws high school groups from all over the country.

“That way we can all be together and all make music together,” said Parton.

Andrea Johnson/MDN Minot High School seniors Gabriel Brooks and Elizabeth Parton are looking forward to their band, orchestra, and choir trip to Orlando, Fla., next week.

Evan Meiers, the band director, said it will be a great experience for the kids because they will have an opportunity to perform at a prestigious venue outside of North Dakota and will have an audience of people that might come from anywhere in the world.

It (will be) kind of like we’re working for the park, putting on a concert for anyone who passes by,” said Parton.

Gabriel Brooks, a senior who is also a member of both the band and the orchestra, said he is also looking forward to playing outside at Disney World.

The students have also performed throughout the year at events in Minot as well as elsewhere in the state, including recently at the Band Day in Williston and in Bismarck.

Students were able to perform during COVID and participate in events such as the All State Music Festival, albeit playing while wearing masks, said Parton and Brooks.

“I know choir, they wore a mask, they liked to call it the duck bills because it would cover your mouth and your nose and it would stick out a lot so it looked like you had a beak so that way you could still open your mouth wide enough to enunciate but not have to worry about spreading germs that way,” Parton said.

Parton said it was good to be able to keep making music but it is also nice to be able to perform without them. easier to hear people sing without the mask.

This is Meiers’ first year as the school’s band director, but he said he is aware that the trip to Orlando is a tradition more than 30 years in the making and has talked with former band director Dave Jensen. He said the music directors decided to keep to tradition this year and will see how things go and whether there should be any changes with the music trip in coming years.

Music will continue to be part of their lives after high school, said Brooks and Parton.

Brooks plans to study music education at Minot State University this coming fall and hopes to one day become a school band director himself.

Parton, who plans to attend the University of North Dakota, said she will continue with music as a hobby.

“I really like the connections I’ve made. I’ve met some of my best friends through it,” said Parton. “It’s really rewarding to be able to play something that you’ve worked really hard on to an audience.”

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