For Evanston Township High School’s Wildkit Marching Band, this year was about rebuilding. 

Because COVID-19 reduced the program’s membership, rehearsal time and performance opportunities in 2020, the directors said their primary goal this fall was to get the band back on its feet.

“The pandemic was really hard on music programs across the country,” director of bands Matthew Bufis said. “A lot of people sign up for band for the social aspect or the ensemble aspect, which is really hard when you’re learning in isolation.”

But by the end of this marching band season, the Wildkits won their fourth consecutive grand champion title at the Marengo Settlers’ Days competition.

The Wildkits traveled more than sixty miles to Marengo for the competition, which was part of the Settlers’ Days festival. At the competition, the team performed its 2021 show in addition to parading through the festival grounds.

The band’s directors started designing its 2020 halftime show in January, just months before the pandemic caused a nationwide lockdown and the show was scrapped, Bufis said.

As the directors designed the show for the 2021 season, they wanted to incorporate the band’s experiences throughout the pandemic, according to Bufis. He said they settled on the theme “2021: The Musical,” featuring “It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday” by Boyz II Men, “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey and “One Day More” from Les Miserables.

“I was really excited with the collection of tunes that we played this year,” percussion section leader Katie Drew said. “We had a lot of visual and electronic components, which can cause things to go wrong, but everything went very smoothly and really brought the music to a higher level.”

The band began rehearsals in August, practicing marching fundamentals and learning the show’s music and drill. Once the school year started, it rehearsed as a full group every Wednesday. Drum line, percussion and color guard met one additional time per week, according to Bufis.

The marching band performed its halftime show at every home football game as well as at two competitions, the Red & Black Fall Classic and Settlers’ Days. Bufis said he sees competing as an opportunity to put feedback into practice, not just to garner accolades.

“I wouldn’t call us a competitive program,” Bufis said. “We go to contests mostly to expose our students to what’s out there. I find the most value and importance in getting critiques from evaluators.”

Even though the band won grand champion at Settlers’ Days the past three years, drum line section leader Toby Perlstadt said he felt no pressure to continue the winning streak.

“We weren’t sure how other bands had responded to the pandemic,” Perlstadt said. “We didn’t go in with massive expectations. We were just happy to get out and perform.”

The band won best brass, woodwind, percussion and marching in the 3A class, and it ultimately took home its fourth grand champion trophy.

In an effort to expedite its departure, Bufis said the band loaded the buses before the awards were announced. The drum majors and color guard captains accepted the awards on the field while Bufis announced the results back to the buses via megaphone.

“As they were about to announce grand champion, I wasn’t really thinking anything of it, because I knew we usually got it,” color guard captain Charlotte Miller said. “But when they finally said it, I was like, ‘Whoa, this is so exciting’ — just having that moment and that rush.”

Being the only returning color guard member from the 2019 marching season, Miller said she cherished getting to revive team traditions.

When the team ended its season last year, Bufis said he asked upperclassman members of the team to write down traditions to pass on to the next year’s cohort. For Bufis, watching them take these traditions and share them was exciting. 

“It’s been great watching our upperclassmen really take ownership of the rebuild,” Bufis said. “We started the season so unsure about the future, so we just said, ‘Let’s put one foot in front of the other.’ Thankfully, we came out of it feeling like we all truly accomplished something.”

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Twitter: @ella_kuffour

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