{"id":22166,"date":"2025-05-20T19:46:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T19:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-and-mancos-bands-join-forces-receive-excellent-ratings\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:11:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:11:42","slug":"dolores-and-mancos-bands-join-forces-receive-excellent-ratings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-and-mancos-bands-join-forces-receive-excellent-ratings\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores and Mancos bands join forces, receive excellent ratings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Mancos and Dolores bands joined forces to receive Excellent ratings at the Music in the Parks competition earlier this month. (Andrew Saletta\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

At this month\u2019s Music in the Parks at the Elitch Gardens Amusement Park, Mancos and Dolores combined to earn \u201cexcellent\u201d ratings for their concert band and jazz band.<\/p>\n

The Mancos school district took 15 students, 11 from the high school and four from the middle school, to the competition. Twelve students from Dolores participated.<\/p>\n

Dolores band teacher Bentley Monk said he and Mancos music teacher Andrew Saletta got together in February at the Fort Lewis College Honor Band, and Saletta invited Dolores to join the Mancos High School Band for Music in the Parks, May 2-4.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rehearsed here at Dolores for over a month, preparing to meet Mancos\u2019 High School Band,\u201d Monk said.\u00a0\u201cOnce together, we only rehearsed a total of three times as a full ensemble prior to performing two sets of music, one concert band and one jazz band.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group received \u201cexcellent\u201d ratings for both bands. The concert band placed first, and the jazz band placed second.<\/p>\n

Saletta said he has taken a nontraditional route to foster students\u2019 love of music. Because he can meet with high school and middle school band students for one period during the school day, he meets with them outside of school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve devised a system which allows band kids to keep making music; we meet every Monday night, after sports practices, so that these multitalented kids can pursue all their passions,\u201d Saletta said. \u201cWe invite families to prepare a meal so that hungry sports kids can come to practice and get nourished after a long day and before band practice,\u00a0then after enjoying a meal together we settle in for a long, rewarding rehearsal.\u00a0We have a lot of fun and I\u2019m really proud of all my kids for their commitment to music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saletta expressed his excitement for how the bands performed, saying it brought the schools together to create new friendships and memories.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the kids performed really well at the competition and at both home shows,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing small schools, our concert band kids never really get the chance to play with the size of band\u00a0that is normal at larger schools, and this really was a great opportunity to make that happen for our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all made new friends, and enjoyed making wonderful memories together at the festival, then also at Elitch Gardens Amusement Park in Denver as a reward for their hard work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Monk echoed Saletta, sharing his pride.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuper proud of our kids, both schools, for pushing themselves into new territory\u00a0and finding their\u00a0voice among each\u00a0other from two rival schools,\u201d Monk said. \u201cThis was Dolores\u2019 first trip back to Music in the Parks festival at Elitch Gardens since the early 2000s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that this trip does two things for both of our programs. One, encourages students who are currently in band at both schools to keep working and pursuing excellence through music and two, elevates both programs into years of great successes musically that helps push Montezuma County beyond Cortez High School\u2019s program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monk also shouted out a Dolores band senior who played the role of percussionist on the band.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to give a big shout out to Noe Leon, Dolores High School senior percussionist, for his incredible leadership demonstrated throughout his years in the Dolores band program.\u00a0Noe will truly be missed, and I am beyond thankful I got to be his teacher,\u201d Monk said.<\/p>\n

Specifically regarding the schools\u2019 collaboration, Saletta spoke about the students\u2019 excitement in working with their peers and the roles that he and Saletta took on as co-directors of the combined band.<\/p>\n

The collaboration proved to be a rewarding experience for students and directors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe collaboration with the Dolores\u00a0band was a blast,\u201d Saletta said. \u201cAt first, the students were a bit tentative getting to know each other, and feeling everything out with how this whole collaboration would work.\u00a0By the time the second rehearsal arrived, I think the kids were really excited to be working with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saletta noted that while students were initially reserved, they quickly embraced the partnership.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the second rehearsal, the energy and enthusiasm were evident,\u201d he said. \u201cMr. Monk and I shared conducting responsibilities for both the competition and our school concerts. The entire process unfolded naturally and with great synergy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The performances showcased the combined talents of both schools, highlighting the power of music to bring communities together.<\/p>\n

Monk added that his relationship with Saletta is a \u201ctrue musical friendship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAndrew, Mr. Saletta, is doing amazing things as a K-12 music educator who deserves a lot of credit for creating a safe place for all kids, no matter who they are, where they are from, to become a musician,\u201d Monk said. \u201cI hope to work with Mancos\u2019 band for many years into the future.\u00a0Our student musicians deserved this trip as a reward for years of hard work and dedication.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Competition took place in Denver this month<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,103,28,83,392,559,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-schools-re-4a","tag-headlines","tag-mancos","tag-mancos-school-district-re-6","tag-music","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77601,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166\/revisions\/77601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22166"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}