“Freaky Friday,” “School of Rock,” and “Lemonade Mouth” all exemplify renditions of bands going head to head in a competition to determine who is the best band of them all. That competition comes to campus next week. 

The Battle of the Bands is a competition between the grades in which each grade’s band represents their assigned music genre, correlating with their dress-up theme for that day and taking place Wednesday, March 15 for the first time. 

The bands are judged on several factors, including group cohesiveness and coordination, the incorporation of their theme, audience appeal, performance quality and energy, and uniqueness. While uniqueness is only judged on a scale of one to two, the rest are judged on a scale of one to four.

FRESHMEN — Country 

• Examples of country music artists include Johnny Cash, Carrie Underwood, and Alan Jackson.

• The freshmen band members include lead guitarist and vocal freshman Sage Duke, vocal freshman Lara Miranda, strings freshman Yurem Munoz-Martinez, band freshman Van Grzybek, strings freshman Musiq Williams, vocal freshman Levi Cowen, band freshman Nathaniel Fong, and vocal freshman Daniel Jones. 

• “Personally, I’m really excited about it because I’ve always wanted to be a part of something like Battle of the Bands,” Duke said. “I think that bringing it into school on such an exciting week like Spirit Week will be amazing to see because It’ll be a lot of fun to have music majors and non-music majors come together.”

SOPHOMORES — Techno/Pop

• Examples of techno pop artists include Yellow Magic Orchestra and New Order.

• The sophomore band members include guitarist and visual sophomore Noah Noonan, band sophomore David Aloni, piano sophomore Noah Kreigstein, theatre sophomore Zoe Bliss, and strings sophomore Charles DeBay.

• “None of us listen to pop techno. We’re more rock artists,” Noonan said. “It’s made the setlist interesting but also very difficult.”

JUNIORS — Indie/Alternative 

• Examples of indie artists include Radiohead, the Pixies, and Foster the People. 

• The junior band members include vocalist and communications junior Emily Singer, theatre junior Blake McCall, strings junior Pablo Weir Beriro, digital media junior Coral Johnston, and theatre junior Liam DeMary. 

• “My friend (Johnston) and I were thinking about how indie has really changed definitions in the past couple decades,” Singer said. “So we kind of wanted to take it old school and then kind of bridge that to what we would consider modern indie.”   

  

SENIORS — Rock n’ Roll

• Examples of rock n’ roll artists include Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Queen.

• The senior band members include vocalist and vocal senior Amelia Williams, piano senior Joshua Lumaban, digital media senior Sara Grant, and band senior Roman Ullian. 

• “I’m pretty excited. I like performing. It’s my last year, and I’m going to have fun,” Williams said. “The vocalists are really good, the instrumentalists are really good, so I think we have a good shot. 

View images and additional coverage of Battle of the Bands on March 15.