Schools

What it Takes to be a Marching Bear: Part 2

A peak at Norwalk High School's award-winning marching band.



Yesterday Patch introduced The Marching Bears in a post entitled, "What it Takes to Be a Marching Bear: Part I." 

Today, in Part 2, we offer a few more details. This year the band features 80 horns, 27 Color Guard members and 30 percussion players. They are led by Chris Rivera as the Director. He is assisted by Dave Dumont (Percussion), Doug Oravez (Visual), Sara Golding (Brass), Zach Thomas (Woodwinds), and Tosca Rivera (Color Guard). This year’s Drum Majors are Kevin Garrish, CJ Tinnen, and Teddy Gill.

This year’s show is entitled “iSpy”. It presents the story of a daring jewel heist with a lot of  action and espionage mixed in -  all accompanied by the fantastic playing and marching of the Bears as well as the  stunning visual displays of the Color Guard. 

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The Marching Bears compete as a marching band in the Metropolitan Arts Conference (MAC) that includes several area schools as well as some out-of-state competition. Indeed, the Bears won the MAC Conference last year. In addition, they were asked to play at Disney World as well as at the Lincoln Center. 

The Norwalk High School Marching Bears kicked off their 2013 competition season by placing First in the MAC Competition event that took place at Brookfield High School recently.

Find out what's happening in Norwalkwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Last year the Marching Bears took the MAC title. They also came in 2nd in the regional competition that was held in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, NY (narrowly losing to one of the local bands). They were also invited to play at Disneyland as well as the Lincoln Center where they were featured and performed as the marching toy soldiers in a production of ‘Toyland’.

If you have never seen the Marching Bears perform you have no idea what you are missing.


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