As the crowd roars as the marchers take the field, the tension is high on the field as the band waits to be cued in. The drum major looks at senior Savanna Westwick and goes to the tempo of her beat for the last time.
“It’s been a long journey, for sure,” Westwick said. “ but there were lots of really cool opportunities from freshman year when I kind of just got thrown into the deep end. I got put in the top band with all of the juniors and seniors, which was a really cool experience.”
Westwick began her journey through high school marching band with the show ‘SMILE’ in the Front Ensemble on Marimba, throughout the years she’s been a consistent top band member. Savanna has continued to do hard work throughout the season off and on, along with through band camp.
“I walked into that and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is really hard’ but it was cool,” Westwick said. “It’s taught me how to work hard and things like that. It’s been four years of challenging myself more and more as I realized all the things that came with percussion and music.”
During her freshman year she also went to PASIC (Percussive Arts Society International Convention) where she went to perform solos and ensembles with others at Indianapolis for an international competition.
“We played lots of really cool pieces for that,” Westwick said. “Lots of really hard pieces.”
Throughout her high school career she’s done many different solo competitions and solos she performed for applications to colleges such as UNT (University of North Texas) and TCU (Texas Christian University). Westwick has also made many different solos to perform in competitions like lone star and at Plano Drumline competition to where she placed with a snare solo in 2023 titled “Old Man Hands”.
“I actually played a lot of pieces for those schools which was a lot of work,” Westwick said. “I played the fantasy vibraphone, but then for college, I had to play two different marimba solos, two different standard drum solos, a timpani solo, five different drumset pieces, sight reading, all that Jazz.”
Westwick joined the marching band and marched her last 3 years as the center snare. This past season composer Nick Werth wrote the percussion parts for Battery and Front Ensemble.
“We got to march in the front field so everyone could hear us,” Westwick said. “We went to grand nationals again, so that was a really fun year. I’ve been snaring for the past three years so it’s been really cool getting to grow up with the seven other drummers who have been together for the past three years.”
Westwick has inspired other percussionists like junior Kenna Boyd, a captain of pit and taking over Westwick’s role as percussion coordinator.
“There’s nights she works her absolute tail off to not only be good at what she plays during marching season,” Boyd said. “But to be the absolute best percussionist that she can be in every aspect and area. She takes every opportunity in the hopes to make herself better and it’s super inspiring and I look up to her a lot as a percussionist myself.”
Westwick was also a main point of help throughout concerts pieces throughout the concert season.
“I know she’s just going to go into learning and teaching others how to play to the highest level,” Percussion director Shane Snyder said. “I know she’s going to go into playing at the highest level she can.”
Westwick plans to attend TCU in the fall and plans to teach lessons to the percussionists attending Prosper High School. She also plans to major in music education. Savanna previously received a scholarship from band and the John Philip Sousa award at this years band banquet along with many other awards in music.
“I realized at the end of my freshman year that I wanted to pursue this past high school,” Westwick said. “That kind of motivated me to give it 110% I was like, ‘I’m going to dedicate all my time and energy into this, because I have nothing to lose.”
