Since November, the FHN Concert and Symphonic Wind Ensemble have been preparing endlessly for their winter concert set on Monday, Dec. 16. The concert was going to be held in the FHN Auditorium at 7 p.m. for friends and family. On Dec. 15, the FHSD called off school and extracurricular activities for the following day which inevitably led band director Rob Stegeman to cancel the winter concert.

“I’m not a fan of snow days anyways, but band kids are getting hit particularly hard by this storm,” Junior Jay Scott said. “We were slowly getting better at this new music and ready as ever to perform it on Monday and now we can’t, it’s a little disappointing.” 

The obvious next steps for the band would be to reschedule, but the schedule has no means of fitting it in. Already having the concert at the beginning of finals week, changing it to another day the same week would interfere with the students’ success on their finals. After winter break, the band programs go into competition mode for the MSHSAA State Large Ensemble contest coming up, leaving no room for a concert to be worked in as the band will be preparing for competing instead. 

“If a concert date can’t be found I might have to cancel so that I can dedicate my efforts to preparing our four groups for State,” Stegeman said. 

While the snowstorm caused a damper on the concert, the students still took advantage of the extra practice time. The Symphonic Wind Ensemble is taking on more of a difficult piece this year compared to their previous songs from years before. The band has been working hard to show off their new skills with the song Lauds by Ron Nelson. Along with Lauds, the band is also preparing to take a piece called October by Eric Whitacre to contest with them. 

“The snow really helped me out to get my homework done along with practicing more,” Freshman Max Brewer said. “I haven’t had the music that long so I can use all the catching up I can get.”