SKU: GI.G-7266
Music, Dreams, and
Coming of Age in the
Heartland. Composed
by Kristen Laine.
Instructional. 325 pages.
GIA Publications #7266.
Published by GIA
Publications (GI.G-7266).
ISBN 9781592403196.
English.
Every
fall, marching bands take
to the field in a
uniquely American ritual.
From the stands, it looks
easy. You don’t
see them sweat. For
millions of kids, band is
more than a show.
It’s a rite of
passage—a first
foray into leadership and
adult responsibility, and
a chance to learn what it
means to be part of a
community. Nowhere is
band more serious than at
Concord High School in
Elkhart, Indiana, where
the entire town is
involved with the success
of its defending state
champion band, the
Marching Minutemen. In
the place where this
tradition may have
originated, in the city
that became the band
instrument capital of the
world, band is a
religion. But it’s
not the only religion, as
director Max Jones
discovers. After four
decades. Jones’s
single-minded devotion to
musical excellence has
fallen out of step with a
younger generation
increasingly focused on
personal salvation. In
what his students do not
know is his final season
of directing, he has
assembled his most
ambitious show ever, for
the strongest senior
class he has ever
directed. Amid
conflicting notions of
greatness, the band
marches through a season
that starts in hope and
promise, progresses
through uncertainty and
disappointment, and ends,
ultimately, in
redemption. American Band
is an unusually intimate
chronicle of life, in all
its triumph,
disappointment, and
drama, in the kind of
community in which most
of America lives. It is
an especially timely
portrait, capturing as it
does the spirit of the
heartland at a time of
profound change. If you
have ever been— or
yearned to be—
part of something bigger
than yourself, you will
be rooting for the kids
whose voices fill this
book. Kirsten Laine is an
award-winning journalist
whose commentaries can be
heard on Vermont Public
Radio. She lives in New
Hampshire with writer Jim
Collins and their two
children. “American
Band has everything going
for it, from tempo to
heart to the grand
bittersweet finale. What
a gift for readers: a
pitch-perfect tribute to
kids and song and
community.â€
—Madeleine Blais
Pulitzer Prize winner and
author of In These Girls,
Hope is a Muscle.
Marching Season - Score Only
