Norwich — By 11 a.m. Saturday, the west parking lot hard to the Norwich Free Academy athletic field looked like the staging area for a big-time music festival. Huge trucks disgorged equipment and instrument cases, lighting and production effects and props, and road crew personnel who looked suspiciously like Mom and Dad were separating and organizing gear.

Across the street on Chelsea Parade, musicians were warming up while, spread across the NFA campus, members of other bands milled about, talking or texting and comparing their respective show times.

For indeed, this WAS a music festival.

Instead of metal or country or hip hop, though, 11 high school marching bands from across Connecticut were on hand to compete at NFA's 26th annual Classic Band Festival. It's one of several that comprise a season that runs from September into November and includes several events. Bands compete in three different class levels based on the size of the organization, though a variety of classes typically perform at each event. In fact, three of the competing bands Saturday performed early in order to get to another competition in Rocky Hill.

If you're of a different era, the high school marching band concept might conjure a nostalgic mental snapshot of long-ago halftimes at football games when the marching band, clad in those fuzzy, sky-high hats, would blare Sousa or perhaps an arrangement of Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" and step sprightly in geometric patterns that somehow ended up spelling out GO TEAM!

That blueprint is pretty much extinct.

Today's high school marching band is perhaps the quintessential extracurricular activity. It's a dizzying fusion of athletics, music, dance and theatrics. In that sense, the stereotype of the "band nerd" is largely obsolete; band members are often members of sports teams or are theater department participants, and so on.

"There's an amazing sense of respect between students in schools these days," said Chuck Williams, the events coordinator for USBands, the largest scholastic marching band circuit in the country, which oversees 150 events annually including the NFA festival. A former high school band member who was in the Baltimore Colts Marching Band, and whose two children were high school band members, Williams said, "The athletes and musicians support one another more than ever. You'll see a football player in the band, maybe playing at halftime in his uniform. Or each group will volunteer to help out or run concessions or whatever at the others' games or competitions. There's very little divide anymore." 

"This IS a sport," said Jose Traverso, whose son is a trumpeter and section leader for the Fitch Band, and who is also on the fencing and baseball teams. "It has the same sense of competition and anticipation and these events are very physically demanding. At the end of the day, when the judges are counting down each band's score, the excitement and adrenaline is fantastic."

Each school's marching band has its own program and story line that they'll use and refine through the season with each competition. The goal to improve is natural — plus they're all looking ahead because a cumulative score based on weekly judging determines class champions.

The music, choreography, flag work, drum lines and color guard, and thematic narrative is something band directors and staff work on pretty much a year in advance. And rather than choose a variety of contemporary pop songs or brass band repertoire around which to build a march routine, today's high school band production is so intensely layered and conceptualized that many programs hire professional organizations to help out with or solely provide music or dance or theatrics or narrative or any combination thereof.

"This year we pieced together the music for our program but paid someone to arrange it for us," said Kristen Motola, director of the NFA band. "We developed the flag work and choreography and we'll adjust weekly according to what we learn when we perform. And a big part of it, of course, is that we try to pick music that fits the kids' abilities and also challenged them and appeals to them. We want them to be onboard with the story line. We want to be competitive, but we also want everyone to enjoy what we're doing."  

On Saturday, music ranged from neo-prog rock suites to Bach; Debussy to Bernstein; commissioned original music; and Foo Fighters, Radiohead, Fall Out Boy and YYZ.

Narrative themes featured meditations on dystopia: Meriden's O.H. Platt High School Panther Marching Band's "Afterworld"; The Plainfield Marching Band's "Aftermath"; and East Haven High School Co-Op Marching Band went volcanic with "In Ashes Ending."

Meanwhile, Ellington High School's Marching Knights' show was "West Side Story"; New Milford High School explored "The Twilight Zone"; and NFA — who as hosts performed as an "exhibition" and were judged but were not actively competing — explored Spanish sounds and culture with "The Matador." 

The complexity of the NFA arrangements and choreography demonstrated a sophistication that represented the degree to which marching bands have evolved.

The band's drum major, Noah McMahon, said it's exhilarating to look out at all the musical and moving parts unfolding to his rhythmic direction — but it can also be a bit intimidating. "I have to fight the adrenaline and the urge to rush things," he laughed. "Or sometimes my hands get tired and I have to make sure they're not slowing down. Behind it all is that desire we have to be really good and competitive. At the same time, I couldn't name another school as a big rival, like maybe you'd have in football. But that's OK. I find myself really enjoying watching the other bands and seeking out musicians to meet and talk with when it's all over."

If there was a perhaps natural rival to NFA, it could be the Robert E. Fitch Senior High Falcon Band. Their "Spark of Invention" took a conceptual look at the life and work of inventor Thomas Edison and including a portrayal of Edison as well as a comes-to-life light bulb.

Band director Andrew Lefebvre said, "It's a pretty ambitious show, but marching bands have really changed over the years in very good ways. They now involve ballet, body movement, acting and a new level of musicianship and marching arts."

To that end, Lefebvre and his staff worked with a composer in California, a designer in Boston and an outfit in Texas to put together the "Spark of Invention" piece. "It's gotten a lot more high-profile and sophisticated," Lefebvre said, "but we don't forget that it's ultimately about the kids. The show must be designed for their enjoyment and development." 

In that spirit, it was great to see the Ledyard High School Colonels Marching Band — performing for the first time in years. The organization stopped a while back after membership dwindled, but a new director, Zach Thomas, rekindled a spark.

"We regard this as sort of a run-through year," band member Christian Pagan said. "We want to be competitive and we've worked hard, but it's still pretty new."

"We're a bit nervous; there's some really good bands here. But we're excited, too. I think we've done pretty well," added his bandmate Courtney Sizer.

Perhaps because the program IS still developing, their "Girl Power" show and performance was the most traditional of the day — but it was so precise and well executed that the crowd responded with excited support.

"That was outstanding," said Williams, watching from in front of the trophy table. "They really nailed it. It's so great to see Ledyard out here. It's great to see all of these bands because what it comes down to is the awesomeness of the kids and the families and the organizations. You just can't beat the kids giving their all and watching the quality of the programs and performances."