The Fountain Hills High School music program ended the competitive season in a big way recently, taking part in the WorldStrides OnStage Music Festival in San Francisco and bringing home quite a few major awards for their effort.

According to music program director Lynn Truby, the fighting flock of Falcon Fury has a lot to be proud of after their most recent round of competitions, which saw the local program go up against 1,800 students representing about 30 programs from across the country.

“The symphonic band won the Adjudicator’s Award for best instrumental group of the whole festival, including all divisions,” Truby said. “And of course, as always, the band and choir students represented our school well with their good manners, patience and team work.”

Overall, the Falcon band came home with a “Superior” [Gold] rating and first place honors at the competition.

The percussion ensemble also brought home a third place, Good, rating competing at Division III.

Receiving Excellent ratings were the jazz band, concert choir and vocal FX jazz choir. The symphonic band earned a Superior.

That’s a lot of hardware to add to the walls in the FHHS music building.

Truby said she was pretty proud of her squad.

“It was pretty amazing,” she said. “As you say, we wanted them to just go in and do their best. But in that auditorium, I could tell on their first phrase of ‘Prairie Songs’ that we were sounding amazing.”

Following their trip, seniors Carla Naranjo, Kaitlyn Pinegar, Maynard Aspa and Lorenzo Rivera were excited to talk about their final big competition with the high school band program. They were joined by members who will continue their legacy in the coming years, including junior Laura Anderson and freshman Ian Malcolm.

“Competing in San Francisco was really special to us, because we don’t usually get to compete in the biggest competition in the Heritage line,” Naranjo explained. “We went because it is Truby’s 15th year at the high school, and we wanted to go as a sort of celebration for her and all the work all of us have put in over the years.”

Pinegar outlined all of the various competitions the Falcons took part in, saying she thought the program had a solid performance overall.

“I think for the symphonic band, we definitely deserved the score we got,” she added. “We worked really hard and sounded really good. We all put a lot of hard work into it.”

Anderson agreed.

“I think we did extremely well in the competition,” she said. “I think all of the hard work paid off. We paid a lot of attention to the little details, which got us that far.”

As for Malcolm, he said it has been quite the experience playing for FHHS this past school year.

“I’ve only ever played with a smaller band, so this was like a chance to play with a bigger group that has more opportunities and such,” he said. “As a freshman, I’ve gotten so much better. Lorenzo [Rivera] pushed me a lot…It’s really great. It’s awesome that I could go up to anybody in this band and say I need help with something, and they will help me. It’s a really awesome feeling to be so supported.”

Aspa, on the other hand, has been playing with the Falcons for the past four years and said he was excited to close out this year’s run at the WorldStrides event.

“It was really fun,” he said. “We got to see a bunch of really interesting places and explored a lot. As a competition, it was pretty much the same as other events we’ve competed in, but the scenery was really nice.”

Rivera has also been with the flock through his high school career and said he’s seen the program evolve quite a bit in that time.

“It’s crazy how much we’ve changed; the whole culture has changed in a way,” he said. “It doesn’t really feel like the last year to me. I just love doing this, man, it’s really cool.”

Naranjo agreed.

“I think the awards reflected how we performed pretty well,” she said. “Everyone walked away feeling good about their performances and knowing they had done a good job.

“The Adjudicator’s Award is amazing. It was the culmination of our four years. Even though the band has evolved and changed, as Lorenzo said, I think we all continue to bring a lot to the table. We are so diverse and bring a lot of different elements to the music.

“The fact that we can all come together and perform as a top band is just amazing to me.”