The annual trip to Anaheim to compete in the Music in the Parks completion from April 3 to 7 is significant in a lot of ways for the Fountain Hills High School music program, and for some of the seniors this last trip of their high school career proved to be extra special.

One of the things that made it special was the already heavily decorated music program excelling in its competitions against nine other high schools.

The FHHS jazz band won first place with a superior rating, the symphonic band earned second place and received an excellent rating, jazz choir placed first with a superior rating and concert choir came in second with another excellent rating.

But as with every road competition, there were some slight bumps in navigating an unfamiliar location for the competition.

“It was really weird because this year we had a 15-minute warm up and normally we have a lot longer,” Marcus Fonville said. “We were in the band room at Valencia High School and that was a weird place to warm up in because they had damping panels all over the walls. So you would play a sound and it would just cut right away.”

Luckily, the amphitheater the band actually competed in was a lot more impressive and suited to the sound.

Going up to perform after a shaky warm up, though, the musicians were a little nervous.

“I had a solo, so for my solo I was really nervous about it but I think I ended up doing really well” Sophia Boeshans said. “The whole band, I think because we had such a short warm up, I felt it wasn’t guaranteed that we had blended but when we got on stage it ended up working out.”

The Falcons said the competition was also especially nerve-racking because they were not able to hear what the other schools sounded like.

“It was also hard to guess how we did because we didn’t get to watch any other bands,” Taylor Helm said. “But we all did feel pretty good after.”

And as is turned out, their feelings were right on the money.

Along with providing the current band with some stiff competition, this trip to Anaheim serves as a nice benchmark for a long, hard year.

“Once you get to the second semester you are like, wow, this is a really long school year,” Fonville said. “Third quarter seems like the longest quarter and then you get to fourth quarter and it is all over really fast. So the band trip is really that marker to how close you are to the end of the year.”

The trip is also a good motivator to finish the year strong.

“It is like a boost,” Nick Tromble said. “Because at that point in the year, we’re all dead.”

Obviously that boost comes from doing well in the competition, but the FHHS music program also got to do a lot of fun things on the trip.

They visited Knott’s Berry farms, participated in a sandcastle building contest at Huntington Beach, watched knights battle at Medieval times and, of course, you can’t visit Anaheim without a trip to the happiest place on earth.

“Our first Disneyland day we got to do a study recording kind of deal,” Tromble said. “So we got to go behind Disneyland and play in their studios. There was a world renowned tuba player that handpicked our music that we would sight read. We played it, they would record it and then put it over Disney movies.”

For some of the students the best part of the trip was hearing their flute over footage of “The Lion King.”

The seniors in the music program thought this was a fitting last band trip for them to go on.

“It was kind of cool because we, the seniors, went in this full circle because it was kind of like the same trip we had freshmen year,” Helm said. “We stayed in the same hotel as freshmen year and also went to Disney.”

The realization, though, of what that last trip meant took a moment to sink in for some.

“When I was there it didn’t feel like the last trip,” Fonville said. “I kept thinking, ‘Oh I can’t wait for next year.’ Then I got back and was like, wow, that was the last trip.”

That might be the band’s final road trip for the school year, but the Falcons have one more performance scheduled for May 7 at 7 p.m. in the Community Center.