Three cheers for the band

Bloomington has always had a reputation for music. Everybody in town knows about the world-class performers who come here to study. But for many IU students, Bloomington's musical prestige stops at the campus gates.\nThose students are grossly misinformed. Something melodically magnificent exists here and it is far, far away from Jordan Avenue.\nThe Bloomington High School North band deserves our congratulations. You might have noticed them last week on national television when ABC and CBS broadcasted the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. They were third in the lineup, right before Arthur, the floating aardvark.\nAll in all, 135 high school students decked out in maroon and black marched 2.5 miles of New York City streets. They played tunes from John Mellencamp and Hoagy Carmichael to an audience of more than 62.5 million people, according to the Macy's Parade Web site.\n"This band is absolutely wonderful," Bill Schermerhorn, the creative director of Macy's annual events said in a Nov. 22 New York Times article. The selection committee must have concurred, considering North was one of 10 bands selected from dozens of applicants.\nBut it doesn't stop there. I would still tell IU students to doff their hats in amazement even if the Macy's Parade was the band's only accomplishment -- but it is not. In the past few years North's band has given itself quite a reputation with several national and international appearances.\nBoth the IDS and The New York Times glossed over this reputation when they gave the same cursory treatment to the band's previous endeavors. "Past travels for the band include the 1999 Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena, Calif., and a 16-day concert tour of Europe in 2002," the IDS printed Nov. 14.\nAllow me to elaborate a bit on these trips.\nNearly five years ago the Tournament of Roses invited BHSN to be one of 25 bands in the parade, according to a Nov. 26, 1998, article in The Herald-Times. North's band raised $300,000 to pay for 212 members to fly to "what is perhaps the world's most famous parade."\nOnce there, it took the band over two hours to march the 5.5-mile parade route with instruments weighing as much as 65 pounds. They played on New Year's Day to a worldwide audience of more than 450 million people. Yes, the band can legitimately refer to the Macy's turnout of 62.5 million as "piddly."\nAs if the Rose Bowl wasn't enough, the band began planning their 16-day European concert tour that same year. For 2.5 years the band worked to generate the $211,200 needed to ship 88 students and parents overseas, according to a June 25, 2002, Herald-Times article.\nDuring that trip the band performed in both France and Switzerland. They played at the Mid-Europe conference in Schladming, Austria and gave their final concert at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands.\nI haven't even mentioned this year's division one rating at the regional competition, last year's division one rating at the state level or last year's superior rating at the Gateway Music Festival.\nYes, the North band is pretty impressive. So congratulations to Janice Stockhouse, the chairwoman of the BHSN music department. Congratulations to Tom Wilson, the band director. But most of all, congratulations to the past and present members of the Bloomington High School North band.\nYou have made both Bloomington and IU proud.