Marching band boosts overall score, finishes 2nd at PIMBA

The Baldwin Highlander Marching Band performs in the 2A PIMBA division.

Evelyn Esek

The Baldwin Highlander Marching Band performs in the 2A PIMBA division.

Simran Rijal and Eliza Swanson

The Baldwin Highlander Marching Band placed second at the PIMBA competition hosted at Gateway over the weekend.

Their final combined music and visual score went from 76.55 at the Baldwin home competition in September to 83.050 on Saturday, which means the band improved by more than six points from its last PIMBA competition in just a month. 

Having seen this improvement, senior drum major Anna Schmidt and junior color guard section leader Julia Graham agree that the band’s visuals, especially those performed by the wind instruments, improved. 

“The winds did a dance that was timed and executed really well,” Schmidt said. 

Schmidt also said that the band performed well musically, and their “crescendos and accents were executed well by everyone.” 

Schmidt is glad they “improved on adding new visuals to the performance and show, and also improving tempo-wise.”

Although they earned a second-place finish, Graham hopes that Baldwin soon can “get a higher score and beat Mars,” a consistently strong competitor this season. 

Graham is proud of how much the band and the color guard have improved throughout the season and hopes they can keep the same pace or improve their scores. 

Their last competition is PIMBA Championships on Saturday at Norwin. The Baldwin band performs at 7:15 p.m.