The Champaign Central Marching Maroons start their 2026 season with their newest show, La Bella Luna. The Marching Maroons are Central’s resident marching band, and rehearse in the North Field. A marching band show takes lots of time for the members to learn because they have to learn the music for the show and the marching formations. The band has accrued 213 members this year across many sections like the horn line, pit percussion, drumline, color guard, and drum majors who all work together to make the band amazing.
The band starts rehearsing routinely in the North Fields at the beginning of the 26-27 school year, but they also have other rehearsals before then like the one most recently on May 11th. Another example of these rehearsals is band camp, which is a week-long period in the summer where the band learns the fundamentals of marching and playing, concluding with a preview show for the families to get a look at the show. Band camp is also a great way for new people to meet other people in the band and build friendships before school even starts.
The name for this year’s show is La Bella Luna, which is going to be a moon themed show. The marching band teachers, Jen and John Currey and Ann Marie Morrisette, collaborated with J.R. Trimpe, the music and drill writer for the marching band, to help decide on the moon theme. “J.R. suggested a Mozart themed show, but I didn’t like it that much so I went on his website and looked around and I thought La Bella Luna would be good because we just had Artemis II go around the moon,” said Mrs. Currey.
One of the most important people in a band is the constructor because of how they set the pace of the music. In marching band, there are drum majors who replace the traditional conductors, and the job takes lots of practice and dedication to do well. This year was a very interesting year for the drum majors due to the previous ones– Audrey Allender, Brady Hong, and Shinjian Song– all graduating, leaving all the spots free for new talent.
This coming season, the drum majors are Kai Marshall, Will Shim, and Jose Hernandez-Perez, who were chosen through an audition process. There is a very strict series of tests each candidate must do, which slowly reduced the number of candidates to around ten. “Looking back, it was a really long process taking two to three months…We also had clinics with the current drum majors at the time about a lot of the basics like conducting,” said Marshall.
All the drum majors this year come from very different backgrounds and have different motives of becoming drum majors. All of them have had interest in conducting since as early as freshman year, and some have even had past experiences conducting for their middle schools.
“In eighth grade, my orchestra teacher wanted me to conduct one of our pieces with a small group of violas and that was my first time conducting and I really liked it so I wanted to try to do a drum major this year,” said Shim.
“My interest [in conducting] started in eighth grade when they [the Marching Maroons] visited Jefferson, and I saw them conducting, and also during band camp and that looked really cool and I was inspired to try out this year,” said Hernandez-Perez.
Along with the new drum majors, there also comes new section leaders, whose job is to be the leaders of their respective sections. Section leaders run their sections by people in the band get introduced to one another and guiding them with playing instruments and marching. Each section is almost like their own friend group with each sometimes doing fun things with their sections.
The Marching Maroons always attend some marching competitions during their season along with home football games, so they can show their skill in marching against other schools. These competitions are some very fun and stressful times for members because of how much time they have to hang out with each other, but there is also lots of stress about the performance in these competitions. There are some competitions the band always attends like the one in Washington, Illinois. This year, the band is not going to be attending one of their biggest competitions of the Illinois Marching Band Championships (IMBC) because of the event taking place during the school’s fall break. “We need to think a lot about things like logistics when planning our schedule like the date, weather, and bus routing,” said Currey.
One of the biggest standout qualities of marching band is probably the formations the band makes during their show. For the past 20 years, there has been one person of J.R. Trimpe made all the formations and most of the music for the show. Trimpe has made lots of shows for many different schools such as schools in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.
Trimpe graduated from Michigan State college in 1999 with a degree in music education, and started teaching marching and high school bands. He eventually started to write music and drill for other marching bands in the area, and ended up sticking with that for the foreseeable future
”I had been teaching marching bands around the state the entire time I was in college, and to make money, I was writing a lot of music for marching bands in Michigan and Indiana. It ended up paying most of my tuition,” said Trimpe. “I realized that I could make a LOT more money if I focused exclusively on music and drill. That, and I wouldn’t have to get up at 6:30am anymore!”
One of the most impressive things for a spectator of a marching band is the jaw dropping formations and movements they make on the field. It is one of the most difficult things about marching band, because of how everyone needs to be on time with their marches and know where to go. This also is a heavy task on the drill writer to know what to make so people don’t crash into each other while also making it not too hard for the band.
The marching band we have here at Central is an amazing group of people that all want new members to succeed. A few years ago, the Marching Maroons won second place at the Illinois Marching Band Championship which was one of the best places they have gotten in many years. There is nothing saying that they will win a gold this year, but the band has been slowly improving each year and it is only going to be better from here on out. “We learn to work with people we might not always agree with or get along with, but we do it for the greater good. We learn how to work as a team. With luck and hard work, this could be our best year yet!” said Trimpe.
