News

Fanfare — Band Director of the Month

Diane Machado-Wyant is GPG Music’s December Band Director of the Month. Diane is a stalwart educator with 32 years experience teaching both public and private schools across all levels of K-12 instruction.  Diane is presently the Conductor of Wind Bands and Percussion at Bellarmine College Preparatory where she has taught for the past 23 years.  She is the former director of bands at Branham High School where she founded and led the award winning  Royal Alliance Marching Band and Colorguard for 11 years. She is also the founding conductor of the San Jose Symphony Concert Winds. In addition to her many years as an educator, she also served as a brass and music judge for Drum Corps International from 1993 to 2013.  

Through her private teaching studio she’s educated well over a thousand young oboists in the Bay Area and as a performer has held the English Horn Chair for the Santa Cruz Symphony since 1990. We appreciate how she embraced Our Virtual Ensemble and the value of digital education for students’ growth; we wanted to recognize her commitment to her students. Diane - thanks for all you do to #InspireTheNextGeneration!

Congrats to all participants, band directors and adjudicators in the nearly twenty WBA  and US Bands competitions. We were honored to sponsor both events this fall season and look forward to future competitions. All of the performers who participated should be proud of their work, no matter where they placed. You've all come off an unusual year of partial or virtual education. We look forward to seeing what you do next year!

WBA

Trabuco Hills Tournament in the Hills - WBA Regional Championships

1^st – 1A Don Antonio Lugo High School

1^st – 2A Rowland High School

1^st – 3A Mira Costa High School

1^st – 4A Upland High School

1^st – 5A Chino Hills High School

James Logan Invitational Band Tournament - WBA Regional Championships

1^st – 1A The King’s Academy

1^st – 2A Santa Teresa High School

1^st – 3A Leigh High School

1^st – 4A Granite Bay High School

1^st – 5A James Logan High School

Kingsburg Viking Classic - WBA Regional Championships

1^st – 1A Selma High School

1^st – 2A Madera South High School

1^st – 3A Clovis West High School

1^st – 4A Clovis High School

1^st – 5A Clovis North High School

USBands

National Championships Open Class

1^st – Open Group I Glen Ridge High School

1^st – Open Group II Passaic High School

1^st – Open Group III Blackstone-Millville High School

1^st – Open Group IV North Penn High School

1^st – Open Group V Dartmouth High School

1^st – A Group IV Loudoun County High School

1^st – A Group V Port Chester High School

National Championships A Class

1^st – A Group I Delran High School

1^st – A Group II Allentown High School

1^st – A Group III West Milford High School

Remo Invitational – Houston

1^st – Open Group I Elkhart High School

1^st – Open Group II East View High School

1^st – Open Group III Liberal Arts and Science Academy High School

1^st – Open Group IV William J Brennan High School

1^st – Open Group V Moe and Gene Johnson High School

Remo Invitational – Austin

1^st – Open Group I Louise High School

1^st – Open Group II George Bush High School

1^st – Open Group III Jordan High School

1^st – Open Group IV Ridge Point High School

1^st – Open Group V Klein Cain High School

Southern States Championships

1^st – Open Group I Sequoyah High School

1^st – Open Group III Clarksville High School

1^st – Open Group IV Columbia Central High School

1^st – Open Group V Bob Jones High School

After eighteen months of challenges and pivoting how we operate at GPG Music, we want to take time to show appreciation for colleagues in our industry who have supported our efforts.  We are starting a Band Director of the Month, to recognize band directors and/or their bands and the significant ways they contribute to the performing arts or support GPG Music. We appreciate all of our clients and the thousands of talented educators or conductors out there. It’s our turn to acknowledge some folks whose stalwart support made the last year more meaningful. 

Our first awardee is Adam Wilke, DMA., Director of Bands at James Logan High School, Union City, Calif.. Adam and our CEO and chief conductor Steve Martin have known each other since grade school. We appreciate Adam’s commitment to being the best, expecting the highest level of effort and achievement of both himself and his students. The Logan High School Marching band is consistently one of the best on the west coast. His wind symphony rivals the excellence and musicianship of many university ensembles. His willingness to give back manifested itself as he was one of the first friends in the industry to provide our Fanfare testimonials. We are proud to offer a few of his compositions in our catalog. We honor Adam for his incredible work as a music educator and the remarkable accomplishments of his bands. 

Our friends at Drum Corps International (DCI) have agreed to share our BDotM recognition, so look for Adam’s honor on their social. If you know Adam, give him a shout out on his Instagram or his Facebook page for being such a rockstar. 

Thanks, Adam. We really appreciate you!

As composers and music educators, we know all too well the challenges of being a Marching Band director. Our mission continues to be providing the finest quality in music selection to challenge students, create tools to enhance student musicianship and to simplify the workload for band directors. 

We’re delighted to announce you can purchase Pyware through GPG Music. Pyware 3D is the leader in drill design software out there — a staple for high school and college marching ensembles. Pyware software is used for many major special events such as Super Bowl halftime shows, Olympics Opening and Closing Ceremonies, more than 90% of all college bowl games, and major parades. In addition, movie filmmakers such as from Drumline and  Broadway choreographers rely on the benefits of the software.

The list of upgrades Pyware 3D has in its latest version really speaks to the product and its commitment to simplifying the work for band directors. The software is fast and flexible for drill writing. 

Pyware 3D Professional Features:

• View, edit, or print any count of any drill at any time
• Create transitions by morphing an existing formation
• Time Track removes the limitation that requires all transitions to begin and end at the same time
• True Automatic animation is handled behind the scenes as you design
• Records your every move and then uses that information to automatically create animation in the background
• Rewrite your drill in seconds

Our executive project manager and designer Aaron Hines works with Pyware 3D and can help you find the product line to meet your needs. Contact us today to learn more or call 800-511-4634 ext. 1.

We’re delighted to be sponsors for the US Bands event season which provides performance experience for nearly 600 ensembles, across more than 100 shows, impacting 50,000 students. Congrats to the students participating in last weekend’s events from Connecticut to New Jersey, Texas to Maryland, and Idaho to Massachusetts, including the first week of the v-USBands, a virtual competition. Congrats to Hamilton West Cavalcade of Bands - DAY for its 46th annual event. 

Also we’re happy to add the Western Band Association to the GPG Music family as competitions we sponsor. Last week was the Mission Viejo Field Show Tournament--looks like everyone had fun. This weekend is the Ayala Music in Motion Tournament, the Irish Guard Invitational and Washington Union Preview of Champions. Best of luck!

We recently chatted with Diane Wyant, Director of Bands at Bellarmine College Preparatory, who has worked with GPG Music for nearly a decade and a half. In our conversation Diane shared her great insight about using Our Virtual Ensemble, GPG Music’s platform and curriculum to address virtual Performing Arts education. As a 30-year educator, she  appreciated the tool, and made the most lemonade out of the pandemic lemons, by pushing her students to analyze their performance. OVE helped her students improve through listening back to and how to practice with their recordings. The whole process helped her students level up their musicianship.

As we reflect on that tragic day 20 years ago, we’re reminded of this piece, composed by Benjamin Boone.  

Here are his thoughts about what went into the piece:

Much of the raw material for this piece was written on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. After becoming saturated with hours and hours of images of the tragedy on the television, I went to my MIDI piano and began to play into my music notation program. I didn't know what else to do - how else to digest the horror that was unfolding. The result was pure rage, anger and profound sadness.

Just prior to that, I had received a California State University Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities Award to compose a work incorporating student input. When I discussed with students what I should write about, the overwhelming response was the attack. I met with students on several occasions, soliciting musical ideas and began work. After several trials, I felt my efforts were hollow and overly sentimental.

For the first time, I revisited the music I played on 9-11 and realized that this raw emotional outpouring would be a fitting basis of the work. I then decided that the best way to involve students was to use their voices in the musical texture. As I interviewed them, the students grappled for meaning, for words and for understanding, as many of us do to this day.

The result is a piece that I hope will cause all of us to reflect on 9-11 and its implications for our lives and our country's life. As one student says, "I hope that we will learn from this, that our country will learn from this."

You can experience the entire composition here.