Rock Falls band, vocalist will play for state girls basketball finals

ROCK FALLS — The Rock Falls High School pep band and a sophomore choir member will be featured performers during the Illinois High School Association’s state girls basketball tournament.

It’s the second time in recent years the music program at Rock Falls has been tapped for such an honor. The band was selected to be courtside for the 2019 state volleyball semifinals.

The 51-member band will play on Friday, March 4 at Redbird Arena in Normal, providing entertaining and rousing music for fans during breaks in the action.

“The audition tape had to be about 10 minutes in length,” said band director Patrick Anderson. The band recorded the tape and submitted it to the IHSA selection committee in December. By January, Anderson was informed the band had been selected.

“Since it is for a pep band audition, we just had to showcase some of our ‘hits’ and show that we had cheers and such to do at the game to support both teams on the court,” he said.

Anderson’s band starts the school year as the marching unit at football games, then makes the transition to an indoors pep band in November.

“Our set list is about 40 songs long, with another 15 reserved for timeouts,” he said.

Some of the band’s favorite numbers are the Wilson Pickett classic “Land of 1,000 Dances,” Ah-Ha’s “Take On Me,” Madonna’s “Holiday” and Chicago’s brassy anthem, “25 or 6 to 4.”

When the Rock Falls band played for the state volleyball in November 2019 in Normal, it had auditioned during the previous school year. Because of that, Anderson had asked those senior graduates who had been part of the audition to come back and perform alongside their classmates. This time, the selection was during the same school year.

Vocal soloist Remington Collins will provide the “Star Spangled Banner” at the start of the semifinals session the same day the band performs.

Her audition process and selection was separate from the band; in fact, it’s unusual that the national anthem performers are from the same school as the pep band.

Collins was part of Rock Falls’ all-state list of individual performers that took part in the Illinois Music Educators Conference in Peoria last month. Remington was chosen for honors choir. Junior choir member Ariana Diaz and senior trumpeter Gabriel Lewis also were chosen all-state.