{"id":25046,"date":"2024-11-02T13:43:43","date_gmt":"2024-11-02T19:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-marching-band-places-third-at-state-competition\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:08:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:08:58","slug":"montezuma-cortez-marching-band-places-third-at-state-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-marching-band-places-third-at-state-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez marching band places third at state competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Montezuma-Cortez marching band placed third at its recent state competition in Pueblo. (William Winslow\/Courtesy Photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Montezuma-Cortez High School marching band placed third at the state competition on Monday, marking the first time in five years that the marching band has made it to finals in the competition.<\/p>\n

The band competed in the 2A competition in Pueblo, squaring off against 12 other bands in Colorado. Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s final score was 69.150.<\/p>\n

William Winslow, the marching band director, said the band got off to a \u201cgood start\u201d this season, winning their first few competitions in September and October.<\/p>\n

They are also scoring higher than they have in the past year.<\/p>\n

The band placed in the top four during the semifinals, advancing to the finals that evening. The band placed third overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe band has medaled many times, but not necessarily in the recent few years. It\u2019s the first time we\u2019re back to the finals in five years,\u201d said Winslow, who\u2019s in his third season as band director.<\/p>\n

When the awards are given, the marching band members, their directors and coaches stood out on the field while their scores were announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really exciting to be out there for that because we hadn\u2019t been at finals the past few years, and it was really fun to have the medals and be able to give them out to all the kids,\u201d Winslow continued.<\/p>\n

Winslow said the band has a theme every year that they base their music and design principles around. This year\u2019s theme was titled, \u201cGold Rush.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was basically like a mining theme, a little bit Western, and a lot of gold themed stuff,\u201d Winslow said. \u201cI like to say that it celebrates the history of gold mining in Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 68-member band performed four gold-themed songs, including: \u201cGolden Hour\u201d by JVKE, \u201cHeart of Gold\u201d by Neil Young, \u201cGold\u201d by Imagine Dragons and \u201cEcstasy of Gold\u201d by composer Ennio Morricone.<\/p>\n

In past years, Winslow said that way in which the band members move on the field, called a drill, is hired out for choreography. This year, however, Winslow wrote the drill himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely better than what we\u2019ve had the past couple of years, and I was able to have flexibility with it too,\u201d Winslow said.<\/p>\n

Some of the props were mountain landscapes, and the band members played the part of the miners.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the show goes along, they find the gold,\u201d Winslow explained. \u201cSome kids go out to the props and they flip them around to have gold on the backside, to indicate that they\u2019re discovered it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band features three main sections: wind players, percussion and the front ensemble, which plays the bigger instruments that won\u2019t move around as much.<\/p>\n

The band also includes the color guard, which spins flags and does dance concepts while the band plays. The color guard is coached by Robin Sitton.<\/p>\n

Winslow said he participated in high school band in Montana, but didn\u2019t really get the marching band experience until college when he joined Drum Corps International, a top-level marching band that college students can participate in during the summer.<\/p>\n

Other faculty involved in the band are assistant director Chris Moraga, Andrew Campo, Preston Sitton, the band boosters, Corinne Sandner and Winslow\u2019s wife, Morgan Winslow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t lived in Cortez for a long time, this is just my third year, but I love to see the history of the program, and I think it\u2019s so cool that so many people in the community have been involved in it at some point,\u201d Winslow said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been a very good program for a very long time, and it\u2019s really known statewide \u2026 we\u2019re not necessarily on top, but going in that direction is really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

reached finals for the first time in five years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,60,36,216,559,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","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\/25046","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=25046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78781,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25046\/revisions\/78781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25046"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}