H ISTORY
Band Together
T
Highlands String Quartet in 1887
This year’s Highlands Olde Mountain Christmas Parade will be swinging to the beat of a cherished town tradition.
eachers of the Arts did cartwheels when Education’s Bigwigs in Washington announced a few years ago that the Arts were steeped in higher-level thinking. At last, music, visual and performing arts were recognized as more than just an hour of recess. But wait a sec! Does that mean music is like, math? Yep, it even has math in it. And so does visual art. Tons of it. And problemsolving galore. Try figuring out the relationship of dotted eighth and sixteenth notes in a measure of 5/4 time. When drawing a hallway in perspective, better have a ruler handy and an understanding of proportion and vanishing points (which weren’t even figured out until the 1400s). This is why the Greeks gave the Arts equal status with Math, Philosophy, Science. And we’re just now getting around to reappreciating the importance of all that. Highlands can bust a few buttons on its vest, because it has always been a strong supporter of the Arts. In 1954 fanfare trumpeted from our mountaintop when the first band program at Highlands School was initiated. It wobbled a bit and was righted in 1989 as an unconditional, fully-orchestrated band. Its director, Kathy Teem, began in a trailer with an ensemble of 13 students. Imagine the honks and squawks reverberating around a 20’x30’ portable. It was like a babe’s first wail followed by hiccups, farts, and coos – then harmonies
and rat-a-tats of melodious sounds in a mere four weeks...okay, four months...well, just in time for a Christmas parade anyway. By year 2000 the band would grow to over 200 middle and high school members. The school, students, and parents were thrilled with this accomplishment. But in 1989 it was the town of Highlands that benefited most. The Christmas Parade (initiated by the Highlands Merchant Association) heretofore had been fun to see. However, it sounded like a silent, shuffling dirge. But when the Highlands School Band’s bass and snare drums kicked off their cadence, cornets and clarinets chiming in, the whole town snapped to attention, a smile on every face, a toe tapping in every shoe. So when you see the local bands marching down Main Street in this year’s Christmas Parade, cheer them on. They are an amazing group of young people. Each will believe to their life’s end that Band wasn’t just a music group. It was a family. Learn more about Highlands families by reading Ran Shaffner’s Heart of the Blue Ridge, a remarkable tome borrowable at local libraries and purchasable through highlandshistory.com. For more information, visit hhs@highlandshistory.com. by Donna Rhodes
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