There is a lot of anger recently in the Monmouth Band program as it was announced that the choir would be traveling for the third year in a row while the band would not. As for next year, the choir will be traveling to Europe, after recent trips, this past month to Texas, and the year before that to New York where they performed at Carnage Hall.
This announcement has left a number of band students who are being shafted to wonder if the Music Department chair is playing favorites with his own groups. No matter what happened in the background of this situation, there is certainly a fairness aspect at play and the visuals of the situation are problematic to say the least. The department chair picking his program to travel for three years running.
It would make this situation far more fair to band students - who have worked equally as hard on our music to become a high-level group and who have had to watch the choir travel now for the last two years and will likely have to watch them again - if each group alternated travel each year. In summary, Choir, it’s the bands turn.
WILLIAM STEFANISIN
Contributing Writer