By JOYANNA LOVE/Senior Staff Writer

Chilton County High School and some Clanton Middle School band members recently performed at Disney Springs in Orlando, Florida.

CCHS band director Matt Martindale was invited by Disney World to apply to perform. After they were approved, Martindale chose a variety of musical pieces for the performance.

“I know many of our students may never get the chance to go to Disney World because of financial means and we were able to bring the trip cost down to a very low amount for everyone,” Martindale said.

The students were given a discount to Disney World for performing.

“We could have either gone as a marching band or a concert band, since it was in the spring when we are doing our concert band pieces, we chose to go as a concert band,” Martindale said. “It allowed us to pair up with the middle school to be able to do a joint band, so more kids had the opportunity to go

The group played “Arabian Dances,” “Zeal,” a compilation of favorites songs from Disney movies and Rey’s theme for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

“It was a good opportunity for us to show that the band does more than just playing on a Friday night at a football game,” Martindale said.

Practices were held at least once a week for about a month before the performance. There were 60 students who participated.

“I thought it was a great opportunity because we never really got to do anything like that it felt like we are actually taking our band to bigger and better things,” Senior Madgalena Henriquez, who plays the flute, said.

She said she was nervous during the performance, but she was “excited to perform for so many people.”

Freshman Caydee Grace Miller, who plays the clarinet, she was excited to participate.

“It was fun to see all the people come watch us, and watch their reactions,” she said.

Henriquez’s favorite piece that they played was “Arabian Dances.” Her favorite Disney song is “Friend like me.” Miller said the Disney song compilation was her favorite in the performance. Her favorite Disney song is “Circle of Life.”

Both musicians agreed that the Disney songs were the more difficult music to play.

“We had a bunch of different types of notes that made it a little more difficult and different rhythms,” Henriquez said.

Martindale said it was the first trip of this scale he has done with the band.

“It was really successful,” Martindale said.

He plans to have more trips of this scale for the band in the future.