Concert Band and Wind Ensemble

Concert Band

Concert Band at Simi Valley High School is a course designed for everyone and anyone who wants to improve not just their abilities on their band instruments, but as musicians as well.

Concert Band takes place during 4th period, and is a class first and foremost focused on education. Students will rehearse and develop their musicianship skills, such as reading and decoding of music, aural technique like singing and listening, their intonation, and most importantly their tone quality. They will also develop technique on their instruments, learning to play with great dexterity, range, and endurance.

Concert band has performed music from composers such as Brian Balmages, Julie Giroux, and Randall Standridge in recent years.

Wind Ensemble

Wind Ensemble at Simi Valley High is the audition required band course. Prospective Wind Ensemble students must submit an audition of annually selected excerpts in order to be considered. The class’s goal is performance and exploration of advanced music from the wind band repertoire. Students are expected to come to class prepared on their music, prepared with necessary technique, and focused on accessing the music at the highest level.

Wind Ensemble has performed works by Percy Grainger, Pierre La Plante, Aaron Copland, and Samuel Hazo in recent years.