The Fountain Hills High School music program recently wrapped up the 2015-16 season in a big way, earning first place in four out of five categories during Disney’s Music in the Parks Festival, along with a soloist award and the Judges Award for Outstanding Concert Band, which takes into consideration all divisions.

The Falcon band hit the road to California earlier this month to play in one final competition of the school year, this time hosted out of the happiest place on Earth, Disneyland.

After multiple days of competition, not to mention competing at the highest division despite the fact that the Falcons hail from a smaller school, the local squad brought home an impressive amount of hardware.

Earning first place honors this year were the concert band, jazz band, percussion ensemble and jazz choir. The mixed choir did a solid job, too, earning a fourth place overall standing.

As an added bonus, Gwyn Goltry was recognized as the Outstanding Jazz Soloist, while the concert band brought home the top honor of the show, a Judges Award for their outstanding performance. As noted above, this last award is given to the top band across every competing division.

A group of this year’s talented musicians got together to talk about the Falcons’ success, including choir president Katie Male, band manager and clarinet player Robbie Cole and percussion equipment manager and tenors player, Austin Button.

Cole explained that the band packed up their buses a couple of weeks ago and hightailed it to California, where they ended their day of travel with dinner at Medieval Times.

“The next day was the day we planned on playing in the Disney parade and doing a studio recording,” Cole explained.

“We played our symphonic instruments with a man named Sal who works for Disney making recordings for movies and TV shows. We played excerpts from Disney songs from movies and we got to watch the sounds played at the same time as the clips.”

After that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the band got into their uniforms and, as soon as they got a group picture, it started to rain.

“So we couldn’t do the parade and had to pack up all of our stuff,” Cole continued.

“But then we got to hang out for a while before heading to Azusa Pacific University. We watched the play, “Hairspray,” because one of our alumni, Erica Schumacher, was in it.”

The following day saw the Falcons enjoying a boat ride before diving into their competitions.

“Each competition was at a different location with a very short amount of time in between,” Cole continued.

“That was an adventure. Our final performance was at 10:15 p.m.”

When asked how the Falcons did, Male said the Falcons did really well.

“All of our groups got a superior or excellent rating, and then we got the extra awards on top of that. For all the running around we did, I was very happy with how we performed.”

Band director Lynn Truby explained that the Falcons competed in the highest level of the event.

“We accidentally did that five or six years ago,” Truby said.

“If you don’t feel you have competition in your division, you can move up. So we just got used to moving up and competing at the higher level so we don’t get lazy.”

With the odds stacked against them, Button said he was happy to see the Falcons shine through.

“I thought we were going to do really well going into the competition,” Button said.

“I still didn’t expect a first in four out of five categories, though. It was pretty exciting.”

Cole said that hearing Fountain Hills get called again and again during the awards ceremony was a “lovely experience.”

Truby agreed.

“I was happy with their performances, because I knew the best they could do,” she said.

“Because of that, I knew it would just come down to whether or not the judges likes us and our sound that day. I knew we had a chance, but I didn’t expect us to do as well as we had done.”

Truby said she would like to give a special thank you to her chaperones, including Band Booster members Carol Cole, Luanna Goltry, Kim Helm and Band Booster parents Amy Aker, Denise Regeski, Valerie Dumitrescue and drum instructor James Morales.

Speaking of Morales, Truby said his idea early on this season to have a percussion ensemble group really paid off for the Falcons.

“We’ve never had an audition group before and the level of music they played was really high,” she added.

“That group allowed us to include everyone who wanted to play, but then also put in a higher tier for those who really wanted to put in some time.”

For those looking to hear the Falcons perform here in town, a band concert is scheduled for May 5 with a choir concert set for May 12. Both will be hosted out of the Community Center at 7 p.m. Admission is free, but donations to the music program are appreciated.

“This was the best senior year I could have asked for, Button said.

“Not only did we get to play super awesome music, but we got recognized for playing super awesome music, which is great.”