{"id":22346,"date":"2025-05-09T16:46:52","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T16:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-chamber-choir-and-jazz-band-earn-special-distinctions-at-competition\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:12:50","slug":"montezuma-cortez-chamber-choir-and-jazz-band-earn-special-distinctions-at-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-chamber-choir-and-jazz-band-earn-special-distinctions-at-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez chamber choir and jazz band earn special distinctions at competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Montezuma-Cortez jazz band (pictured) and chamber choir earned first place and superior ratings during a recent competition in Salt Lake City. The jazz band was also awarded Overall Best Jazz Band, and band member Bruce Stafford was named Outstanding Soloist on the drums. (Marla Sitton\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

At this month\u2019s Music in the Parks competition in Salt Lake City, the Montezuma-Cortez chamber choir and jazz band were awarded first place and superior ratings, which is the highest honor possible.<\/p>\n

The jazz band was also awarded Overall Best Jazz Band and band member Bruce Stafford was named Outstanding Soloist on the drums.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past few years, Mr. Winslow and I have joined forces and traveled to Denver for Music in the Parks,\u201d Marla Sitton, Cortez Middle School choir teacher, told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>. \u201cIt is a yearly music competition for choirs, bands and orchestras for middle school and high school students. This year we decided to travel to Salt Lake instead because it is closer and a different (theme) park.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The
The Montezuma-Cortez chamber choir competed in Salt Lake City at Music in the Parks. (Marla Sitton\/Courtesy photos)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

<\/p>\n

\"The
The Montezuma-Cortez jazz band competed in Salt Lake City at Music in the Parks. (Marla Sitton\/Courtesy photos)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When competing, the band and choir prepare two pieces of music that are judged and scored by \u201ccritically claimed adjudicators\u201d who rate and place each performance based on their performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we had the honor and privilege\u00a0of the highest rating possible of superior and first place,\u201d Sitton said. \u201cBoth the chamber choir and the jazz band scored superior and first place in their respective categories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the day of competing,the group went to the Lagoon Amusement Park, where students were able to ride the rides and enjoy their time at the park. Awards were given out at 4:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

The group continued to celebrate, Sitton said, riding the rides until the park\u2019s close at 9 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

traveled to Salt Lake City for Music in the Parks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,60,216,559,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-music","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22346","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=22346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77672,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22346\/revisions\/77672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22346"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}