Marching Huskies to Host 15th Annual Bayshore Band Competion Sunday

The sixty-five young musicians and color guard members of the Matawan Marching Huskies will march out on to the football field on Sept. 29 and perform a musical arrangement that highlights several Russian composers from the Romantic Period and 21st Century, according to Band Director Christopher Hensel.

The evening at Barry Rizzo Stadium will mark the fifteenth year in a row that Matawan has hosted the Bayshore Band Competition with the assistance of the Matawan Regional High School Music Parents Association. Last year, the band placed third. Their theme was storm.

This year, their theme is fire and passion, and while they are excited about the music Hensel notes that it's also exciting to see it performed on the field during competition.

“What's interesting about marching band is they take an art form like music and translate it visually. It's much different from a concert where you absorb music audibly,” Hensel said.

This season should play out to be an interesting one, with the band welcoming multiple new members.

“We have 14 new members alone in the horn line, not including percussion and guard section,” Hensel said, noting that almost the entire drum line graduated in May. “It presents a challenge. Playing an instrument is hard enough and then adding movement to it is very difficult. It just takes patience and knowing the students will get it if you keep giving them the tools to get it.”

“But I like to think of it as a good problem. It's one of the better problems to have,” he said.