Over the weekend of April 23, the jazz and symphonic bands drove to Hollywood to compete in the WorldStrides Heritage Festival and bond at Universal Studios.

The jazz band was awarded silver and the symphonic band awarded bronze, first time tour member sophomore Gabby Brown said. Three judges, two of whom are professors at Brigham Young University, judged the bands on three different songs.

“Every single year they give us suggestions, like for the jazz band, they suggested that we turn the bass amps six inches,” jazz and symphonic band director Andria Mullan said. “It is really specific, but that’s good because it helps us better prepare for every performance after that.”

Brown said that the suggestions were eye-opening and helped to expose certain weaknesses within the band.

In addition, senior Christian Malaspina, who has gone on the band tour for the past three years, received the Maestro Award, which is given out to musicians recognized by judges for exceptional musicianship.

“I was very excited,” Malaspina said. “I’ve been wanting to win it since sophomore year.”

Besides just competing, the band also went to Universal Studios and had fun going on all the rides, Brown said.

“I like the experience,” Malaspina said. “There’s a lot of freedom that you get when going on tour.”

But now that the rides are over, students take class more seriously after tour because of the valuable feedback they receive, Mullan said.

“You get out of music what you put into it,” Mullan said. “It is more than just coming into class everyday. You have to be working on your instrument outside of class and reinforcing what we work on because everything we talk about about is so very important and these concepts keep coming up over and over.”