Proudly Presents the Thirteenth Annual Annual October 22, 2016 Ocala Marching Band Festival Ocala Marching Band Festival Scotty Vance, Band Director / Event Coordinator West Port High School Wolf Pack Band Marion County Center for the Arts Phone: 352-291-4030 3733 S.W. 80th Ave. Fax: 352-291-4001 Ocala, FL 34481
[email protected] 10/22/2016 Dear Music Enthusiasts, Welcome to the 13th Annual Ocala Marching Band Festival at West Port High School. I would like to take a moment to thank my band students and their parents for all of the help that they have given to the West Port Band Program. I would also like to thank our Administration and the Marion County Public Schools for all of their continued support. Today you will experience the culmination of hundreds of hours of intensive physical and mental preparation from these hard working students that are performing. Not only are these students working as a team to achieve their common goal, but they are instilling within themselves a sense of commitment, determination, dedication, self-discipline, decision making, and personal responsibility to do an outstanding job today. Research is clear that when the arts are included in the curriculum, reading, writing, and math standardized test scores improve. Research has also proven that music students have higher grade point averages than non-music students in the same school. It is not so much that the smart students join band, research shows that students that join band get smarter. In the same way that the FCAT evaluates the essential skills of reading and writing, today this music performance assessment evaluates one of the many essential cultural skills.