The band program in Brighton has a long and storied history. Started in the mid 1930's it has grown into the largest student group in the Brighton Area School District, involving close to 1,000 students 5-12. The Brighton High School Marching Band is known as the Marching 200+ as it has surpassed 200 members for decades. This year's marching band is a little smaller than normal with 180 members. The Brighton High School Bands have achieved great success over time. They are consistent recipients of first division ratings at Michigan School Band and Orchestra Association festivals. They have achieved acclaim in festivals around the nation including several Festival Disney events. The Wind Ensemble was awarded first place overall in each of its last two Festival Disney events in Orlando. The marching band has been selected to perform in several places such as the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade, Holland Tulip Festival Parade as well as the London (England) New Year's Parade. They continue to be highly sought after with recent invitations to perform in London, Rome, Dublin, the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington D.C. and Hawaii to be a part of the 75th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, just to name a few. Recently the marching band performed in Tampa, Florida as part of the Outback Bowl Festivities. In April the Marching 200 will travel to Disney World to represent our community in a parade in one of the parks. Historically the Brighton High School Band was the first non military band to perform at Arlington National Cemetery when they traveled to Washington D.C. as part of the Bicentennial Celebrations in 1976.
At Brighton High School there are 4 concert bands, a jazz band and a marching band. The Concert Band is made up of most Freshman students. The Symphony Band is consists mostly of Sophomores, the Wind Symphony is made up of mostly Juniors but also contains some advanced sophomores and a few seniors that are not in the Wind Ensemble. The Wind Ensemble is the top performing group at BHS, its membership consists of Seniors as well as advanced underclassmen. Marching Band is an outside of school day activity. The music is learned in the 4 concert bands and the marching is worked on Tuesday nights 7-9 pm. We are very proud of the diversity of our band program, in it we have highly advanced college bound students, varsity (and all other level) athletes, as well as students from just about every student and learning group at Brighton High. The Scranton Middle School Bands have a distinguished history as well, being frequent recipients of superior ratings both in MSBOA festivals and regional competitions more information about the Scranton Bands can be found by going to their webpage. The link is in the resources section of this site. At Scranton there are usually 2 sections of 7th grade band, 2 sections of 8th grade band and an 8th grade jazz band. The Band Program in Brighton begins at Maltby Intermediate School where there are 5 sections of 5th grade band and 5 sections of 6th grade band. Each hour has full instrumentation (flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, trumpet, french horn, trombone, baritone, tuba and percussion). Saxophone players are selected in 6th grade from the clarinet section, Bass Clarinet is also begun in 6th Grade on a trial basis. More about the Maltby Bands throughout this website. Prior to 2009-2010 Maltby was a 6-8 Middle School parallel to Scranton Middle School. Over the years the Maltby Middle School Bands had a tradition of excellence much like Scranton. The bands were frequent "Gold Medal" or Superior rating recipients at various festivals both through MSBOA or a variety of other festivals in conjunction with amusement parks. The 7th grade band also performed at the state capitol several times. Pictiures: Top Left - BHS Marching Band 2015-16. Top Right- BHS band in the Outback Bowl Parade in Ybor City, FL Below Massed Band Performance at halftime of the Outback Bowl 2017. |