Marching night and day, band is in the midst of its busiest week of the year. Practicing in preparation for CFB Tournament of Champions and the BOA (Bands Of America) competition on Saturday, band has had after school rehearsal Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, the Frisco Marching Band showcase Tuesday and will perform at the football game Friday.

Associate band director Zack Anderson believes this week’s practice is important to refining the marching band’s Cloud 9 program.

“This is a pivotal week for us because we have a lot of opportunities,” Anderson said. “Students have been working diligently to perfect their craft, to perfect the musical intent and the visual execution and performance of their show this weekend by committing extra hours to late night rehearsals and individual music assessments in class.”

Senior, bass clarinetist Emily Graves hopes the work will pay off for her final BOA competition.

“This is week comes a lot of time for us to clean and refine our show which is super beneficial, especially because it’s a state year,” Graves said. “With BOA being one of our most important competitions, it being the first year we’ve had 2 competitions in one day, and the fact that we have to be up at school at 6am Saturday morning, I think that we might be nervous or stressed, but as long as we stay focused and perform what we’ve practiced, I think we’ll do well.”

Anderson anticipates improvements in the program throughout this weekend’s competitions.

“The expectation for the weekend is that progressively each show gets better,” Anderson said. “I hope that the students would go in with a solid foundation for all the stuff that they’ve been working this week and to feel confident and good about the performance.”