After months of preparing for their Music Performance Assessment (MPA), Robinson’s band ranked “overall superior” with one “excellent” in their MPA competition, hosted by Blake High School on Thursday, March 3. During these competitions, schools can be ranked on a scale from “poor” (the lowest rating) to “superior” (the highest). Robinson’s very own band is very excited to have received this honorable ranking.

At every annual MPA Competition, each school is required to prepare and perform 3 songs. After their performance, they are graded by judges. Then, each school’s band is asked to perform a piece that they have never seen before and are subsequently graded. At this year’s competition, Robinson performed “Purple Carnival,” “Sun Dance” and “Festive Overture.”

While the members of the band were very excited to rank so highly, it took lots of preparation and practice.

“We had rehearsals every week, and… individually people dedicated a lot of time,” said Band Captain, Aidan Bai (’22).

However, band’s biggest challenge was finding time for everyone to practice together. Since many IB students are in band, taking it as their elective, it is very common for these students to only be able to attend this class once every other day, while everyone else attends every day. Luckily, they were able to overcome this hurdle by practicing after school once a week.

Despite their challenges, the Robinson Band was still able to excel at their competition. Yet, they are still striving to improve and do even better.

“Overall I was very proud of the band, but to me, it felt very bittersweet. I was very happy to get ‘superior,’ but I still felt like there is a lot I could have done better,” said RJ Sharp (’24).

But to Christopher Revett, Robinson’s band instructor, winning the title of “superior” didn’t matter to him.

“For me, it wasn’t about ranking ‘superior.’ I don’t care about the score itself. I wanted to see if our students were going to step up to the challenge and play the demanding music that we were asking them to play… and they really played their hardest on stage [so] that’s what I am really proud of. I wanted to hear our students perform at their highest level, and I think they gave a really good performance,” Revett said.