The Herriman Marching Band, also known as the Marching Mustangs, often show up to football and basketball games to support these teams and keep morale high amongst the student section. This isn’t all they do however; they also perform in parades over the summer and have their own competition season in the fall in which they perform the show that they work all season to perfect. These shows can be incredibly varied, and change distinctly in style based on their band director.
The program has had three different full time directors in the past five years. These include Mr. Larsen five years ago, who had been teaching at Herriman for many years before moving on to a vice principal position at Elk Ridge middle school. Mr. Hernandez, his student director, took the baton from him, teaching for two years before tragically passing away from colon cancer. He found out and told the band students in the middle of their band camp two years ago, and declined so quickly that he had to stop teaching in the middle of the season.
During the following year, the band had many temporary directors who stepped up to the plate, including the percussion director Mr. Rosales and a long term substitute, Mr. Howden. After a long hiring process, the current director, Mr. Dulaney, was chosen and spent the summer moving from his previous home in California to Utah.
Mr. Hernandez and Mr. Larsen preferred to follow a more traditional style of marching band shows, featuring 3-5 movements including a beginning, an intense section, a ballad, and an ending, which all reflect some sort of semi-abstract concept. The last year Mr. Hernandez taught, their show was called ‘Doorways Forward’ and reflected on the trials involved with moving on from difficult situations, and the reward that could come from it – a theme that ended up being more fitting than anyone intended.
During that year especially, the band struggled to keep it together and succeed in the face of tragedy, and many of its members ended up leaving the program. However, it did help to strengthen the bonds between those that stayed and provided a good foundation from which the band program continued to grow under the leadership of Mr. Dulaney.
His shows, including “Winnie the Pooh” last year and “Orpheus and Eurydice” this year, center much more around the telling of a concrete story and involve much more elaborate props, costumes, and visuals than ever seen before in Herriman bands.
With these shows, the Marching Mustangs received 2nd place and the high visual caption in the 6A scholastic division at Davis Cup last year and 3rd place and the high visual caption in the 6A open division at the same competition this year. The band has never previously received any captions – which are awards for the highest score in a given category – while in 6A open, and had definitely not placed in the top three when most of the other bands had been in attendance, as they were at Davis Cup. Understandably, this was a huge achievement for our Mustangs, and the program expects to keep growing and get even more awards in the coming years.
