RUHS band wins state
by Garth Meyer
The Redondo Union High School marching band won the Division Four State Championship Nov. 20 at Huntington Beach.
Band teacher Ray Vizcarra also led RUHS to championships in 2015 and 2016.
The 94-member group, and 14-member dance guard started the season by winning the South Bay Invitational at West Torrance.
“It was a sign of good things to come,” Vizcarra said.
The Sea Hawk marching band convened in August — after a year of no marching due to the pandemic. Both the new freshmen and the sophomores were beginners.
A new routine, designed by Vizcarra, is learned each year.
“When the kids came back, they were excited and ready to play,” said the 16th-year music teacher (seventh at RUHS). “They came back with a vengeance.”
One of 150 bands in their division statewide, the group won every competition through the fall, except for a second-place score in the state semifinal performances.
The band is led by drum majors Avi Celestial and Brendan Prasad, both seniors, and assistant drum major Troy Nevil, a junior.
Band captain is senior Delaney Vargas.
The group’s main (halftime) routine, which must be between 7-11 minutes, continued to be developed through the season, with the addition of new props and costumes.
The show includes selections from Disney’s “Aladdin,” Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and from “Slumdog Millionaire,” a song titled “Jai ho.”
“It means ‘Victory,’ and it really was,” said Vizcarra. ER