The Greenwood Marching Woodmen and Irish Guard anticipate a season filled with incredible opportunities, while finally moving past pandemic challenges and offering a new show with an exciting twist.

The show is titled Gathering Green and alludes to a backstory of trying to rebuild Greenwood, all of which is created in relation to Oz themed music.

“This show is different from other shows because it has many layers to it. The more layers and more things that are happening during the performance the harder and more complex it gets. This show brings many challenges to the band and everyone is doing amazing at doing what they need to get done in order to have a great season,” senior Anthony Maupins, drum major, said.

Gathering Green presents a different approach than the band has taken in previous years, bringing light to a new era.

“This season we brought in many new traditions, processes, and staff, beginning a new era of the Marching Woodmen. This is symbolized in our show, which is much different than past years,” junior Amber Hayden said.

The program has experienced many staff changes on top of the challenges that COVID brought over the past couple of years, so many band and color guard members are hopeful of a successful season since they have overcome many of those challenges.

“This is our first real show moving past COVID and putting a new foot forward, with almost entirely new staff and new drill technique. I think we are definitely on the right track this year. The color guard will make this show different due to the help of our new staff, who are entirely a brand new team of very experienced directors. They have great plans for the guard, especially with technique, uniforms, and push us to a higher level than we have ever been before,” senior Avalin Hess, color guard, said.

The high energy of the band will be infectious.

“As a drum major, I am most excited about the people. What I mean by that is we have a lot of incoming freshmen, and even 7th and 8th graders marching with us this year. All of them have improved a lot so far, and I cannot wait to see how much more they progress. This show brings a lot of high energy. It is more energy than I have seen come from a band that is just in high school,” Maupins said.

Several band members started in middle school marching and now are experiencing the Marching Woodmen as a high schoolers.

“This show will be different for my end because this is my second year in band. I was a part of last year’s show but I did not march since I was in the pit. This year I get to march and have fun out in the field,” freshman Austin Beach, percussionist, said.

This year’s show contains intricate musical arrangements which will make it stand out.

“Even though Greenwood has performed Oz shows before, the music written for this one is very creative. Something I’ve observed from the show music this year is it’s not as predictable as years past. While previous shows’ music would slowly build up into a big hit, then slowly build up into a big hit, then slowly fall down, this show starts extremely chaotic and loud, giving it a whole new aspect. The thing I’m excited about most is the sheer energy the group has. In years past, the energy of the group has been low, but this band is on a whole other level,” senior Eric Ratliff, drum major, said.