The Redhawks band is beginning to wrap up the 2023-24 school year with Saturday’s Spring Swing from 2-4 p.m. in the cafeteria with jazz band members and chamber groups of 3-6 people performing.

“Spring Swing gives students the opportunity to work in smaller groups outside of our normal band setting,” assistant band director Cecily Yoakam said. “It puts more individual responsibility and accountability on the students, while also giving them an opportunity to play different music with new people they might not always get to collaborate with.”

Many of the students performing have been refining their music for weeks, having frequent rehearsals on the music to prepare for Spring Swing.

“For jazz band, we have had one rehearsal a week for the past 10 weeks,” sophomore drum major Kanad Bhandarkar said. “Our small ensembles have been working on music for maybe 3-4 weeks.”

According to senior drum major Andrew Wang, it can be difficult to make unanimous decisions on rehearsal times and on the music, which requires good collaboration, accountability, and responsibility.

“The hardest part is staying organized,” senior drum major Andrew Wang said. “It’s really easy to put off picking music or rehearsing when you’re not being actively told to by a teacher. Also it can be more difficult to have opportunities to rehearse as a group because often members of the ensemble can be in different band periods and have different schedules outside of school. Lastly, the decisions about your ensemble group have to be made as a democracy where everyone agrees that this is how it should be played. In comparison, band class and most classes are dictatorships where the teacher decides how the piece should be played.”

There will be some changes next year in the band with a new head director; but one thing that Bhandarkar wants to keep is Spring Swing.

“We should absolutely have spring swing again next year,” Bhandarkar said. “It holds plenty of unique performances and music styles that wouldn’t be heard otherwise, and it’s also just really fun to hang out with your friends and play music.”