After narrowly missing the podium a year ago, the Montezuma-Cortez High School Band returned to state finals on Monday to land a second-place finish behind the band from The Classical Academy, a K-12 charter school in Colorado Springs that won the competition for its second straight year.

The M-CHS band has competed in the 2A classification for six consecutive years, and this is the third year during that time it has finished second at the statewide competition.

Scoring at the competition is based on music performance, visual performance and “general effect” of the show, as described by the scoring rubric from the Colorado Bandmasters Association, which manages the championship.

The M-CHS band scored a total of 68.85 points in its final round, behind the 71.45 of TCA and ahead of the 67.55 for third-place Englewood High School.

The M-CHS band’s performance Monday focused thematically on events from the book “Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” by Alfred Lansing. The book recounts the failure of a trans-antarctic expedition in 1914 and the subsequent struggle for survival endured by the twenty-eight man crew for almost two years.

Last weekend, despite representing the smallest school in the field, the M-CHS band placed 18th overall out of 30 high schools in a regional competition in St. George, Utah. At that championship, the Cortez band beat Juan Diego Catholic High School band out of Draper, Utah to win the Class A title.

cpape@the-journal.com