At the beginning of class, Stratford High’s band room is a cacophony of students warming up on their instruments.
To anyone visiting the room, it might sound like a bunch of noise – but that sound means something a bit deeper to some of the graduating seniors.
“It sounds kind of comforting.”
“It warms my heart a little bit.”
“It feels like home – it feels like Stratford.”
It particularly triggers an emotional response from the band's co-directors, Joshua Artz and Gregory Priest.
Artz is a product of Berkeley County School District, so it is a sound he has heard since he was 11 years old.
“It just tells us that we’re about to embark on another moment to make something great,” Artz said.
There are a bunch of record-breaking events the band is celebrating this year as it competes at a 5A level, and while the students attribute the success of the band to their teachers, Artz attributes it to the students and the teachers who taught them before him.
“These are some of the best students on campus,” Artz said. "These are some of the most friendly and capable students who will ever pass through the doors of Stratford High School.”
Magic of consistency
There is a lengthy list of accolades and achievements the band has secured this school year.
The band previously found success at the 4A level but it is now in its second consecutive year competing at the 5A level, where the band is achieving a lot of “firsts.”
The band celebrated its highest marching band placement this fall. The band placed fifth in the 5A State Prelims and sixth in the State Finals – the highest placement in the program’s history, as well as the school district’s history for 5A schools.
The band also had 68 students placed in the Region 5 Bands for 2023 – the most students in the district and the region for the past five years.
Nine students were placed on the SCBDA All State Roster and four students landed on the SCBDA All State Jazz Roster.
There is not one accolade he treasures over the others; Artz is more focused on the “magic of consistency.” Stratford’s band consistently places students in All County, All State and All Region bands and receives “Superior” ratings at concerts and jazz festivals.
The Stratford Trumpet Ensemble has been selected to perform at the National Trumpet Competition in Boulder, Colorado this March. They make up the second group from South Carolina to ever be selected to perform and the first from BCSD.
Senior trumpet players Tyler Odgers and Dylan Millare are both excited about the opportunity.
“I’m really thrilled,” Odgers said. “We get to go and perform at the national level with this ensemble.”
As graduating seniors, Odgers and Millare said they are doing what they can to enjoy their final semester with the band and make some memories.
“I’ve been trying my hardest this year,” Millare said. “It’s my last year in high school. It’s about to change a lot, so I’ve been trying to take it all in and enjoy it while it lasts before I have to go to a bigger school.”
Immediately after the Boulder event, Stratford High’s Wind Orchestra will head to Washington, D.C. to perform in the President’s Cup. The band is the second group from the state to ever be selected to perform at the event and the first from BCSD.
Seniors are excited about the upcoming trips; because of COVID, the last time they got to do a huge performance trip with the band was their freshman year, when they performed at the Music For All Festival in Indianapolis.
Building a legacy
Artz said his band was always “shooting for the stars,” even during COVID, and attributed the band’s strength during COVID to the great band directors in Stratford’s feeder programs: Ronnie Ward at Westview Middle, Cynthia Kerr at College Park Middle and Brian Trauger at Sangaree Middle (as well as Swati Linder, former band director at Marrington Middle School of the Arts; Holly Hauschild now fills the role).
“With any great high school program comes great teaching at the middle school level,” Artz said. “We are very fortunate here that we have a great middle school team that sends us students that are ready for high school, or students that we can mold and make even better for the high school level.”
Everyone in the band seems to agree that there is an ongoing supportive culture within Stratford’s band program that they got to experience as lower classmen. Artz said the band students really gravitate to one another and make the program their own.
“All the band directors that came before Mr. Priest and myself have stimulated that band culture,” Artz said. “We owe all of that secret to success, to what’s come before us, and we tell that to our students all that time: be thankful for the students who have walked the path before you, that makes it a much better experience for you today.”
Additional accolades
Priest joined the program two years ago after teaching at his alma mater and has since brought a love for the jazz genre to the school. Last year the program placed four students in All State jazz band, the third-most from any school in the state.
This year, Priest is working with two jazz bands, the first time in a long time for the school.
Artz is in his fifth year teaching at Stratford, so this is the first year he has had seniors who have worked with him since their eighth-grade year.
Iler said she loves seeing her band aspire to be even greater than before, and attributes it to everybody wanting to support one another, as well as the band directors.
“I like how honest they are,” she said. “Our band directors just want to help us, so they’ll be completely honest with us, no matter what happens.”
Graduating senior Emma Hatfield, who plays the flute, echoed similar thoughts on her teachers.
“I love the environment that they’ve created,” she said. “It’s definitely a no-judgement zone. It’s very supportive. They’re teachers you can always come to.”
Hearing the students speak that way means their band directors know they are doing something right.
“It’s just this big family tree, and it just means that our culture has got some deep roots,” Artz said. “The way that we do things is important, and what we say to our students…they find it very valuable and they impart it to others.”
Highlights of the 2022-2023 school year:
- The Stratford Band Program placed fifth in 5A State Prelims and sixth in 5A State Finals, making this the highest placement in program history and in BCSD's 5A history
- The Stratford Band Program placed 68 students in the Region 5 Bands – the most students in the district and region for the past 5 years
- The Stratford Band Program placed nine students on the SCBDA All State Roster and four students on the SCBDA All State Jazz Roster
- The Stratford Wind Orchestra was selected to perform at the President's Cup in Washington, D.C. this March. The band makes up the second group from South Carolina and the first from the district to perform.
- The Stratford Trumpet Ensemble selected to perform at the National Trumpet Competition in Boulder, Colorado this March. They are the second group from the state and the first from the district to do so.
- Senior bassoonist Jalyse Iler selected for the SCBDA Master Recital
- Sophomore bassist Colin McCombs selected for the SCBDA All State Jazz Honor Combo