San Antonio is known for being one of the biggest BOA (Bands of America) competitions in America with a maximum of 118 bands competing. This weekend, the Marching Green Pride has the privilege to compete alongside them.

“The best bands of America go to San Antonio,” senior head drum major Kayla Cockerline said. “Obviously every BOA is hard and has really good bands, but BOA San Antonio is like one of the top BOAs.”

The band is preparing for this competition by watching the most recent run-through video and cleaning up the show. They do this by making a list of what needs to be cleaned at the beginning of every week and have sectionals, which is a practice run by the section leader, before official practice at least once a week.

“The things we’ve heard from judges are the same things we’ve heard all season,” head band director Aaron Martin said. “We have kids overplaying, sticking out of the group sound so we’re going to set up, for example, the opening hit of the show and we’re going to play the music and we’re going to find where those people are overplaying.”

In March, the band directors got the first movement music for the show. Percussion director Michael Strange started arranging the drumline music and front ensemble music until July, and the brass and woodwind music was arranged by music arranger Evan Van Doren.

“We have Gapura River, Tiquie River, and those two are by Philip Glass,” Strange said. “Then we’re doing one called Tokyo Counterpoint by Steve Reich and the last movement we’re doing is Amazon River by Philip Glass.”

Aaron Martin said his goal for the competition is for the band to put on the best performance they can and for them to come off the field feeling great about what they just did.

“Make sure you are doing your job and trust that your friends are doing their job,” Martin said, “Make sure everything you are doing is at the highest level you can do it. If we all do that, everything will take care of itself.”