The Hempfield High School marching band will be making a statement even when it's not making a sound.

The unit's fall program for football games and competitions is called "Shh!"

"It's about the sound of silence, so we have some parts of the show that are really loud and then they get right to quiet just to have the feeling of silence," explained senior drum major Liv Schmidt explained. "It's kind of hard in a marching band show because you think big, loud instruments, but it's really all about embracing the silence to have your own thoughts."

The Black Knights' marching band has been preparing for its show with camps in August. After a minicamp, Hempfield held two weeks of camp from Aug. 4 to 8 and Aug. 11 to 15. The band practiced from 12:30 to 9 p.m., including an hour dinner break and some fun activities.

Junior drum major Adam Binder was impressed. "I like the work ethic I've seen. It has been through the roof," he said. "I love to see the effort and focus that everyone is putting in the skill level people are achieving already. It's awesome to see."

"Shh!" is composed of three songs: Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel, and Symphony No. 9 by Beethoven.

"Beethoven was deaf for a large part of his career," Liv said. "Our show is also including some parts of what your experience would be if you were deaf."

Band director Matt Ceresini said, "We thought it would be interesting to start a show where we go, 'Shh!' and get the audience to feel a little more involved. It's like breaking the fourth wall a little bit. That was the original idea, and then we were just talking about ways we could do that. There's a couple of silent parts, and then we have a part that's going to have American Sign Language in it, too. We're going to communicate with the audience without sound.

"There's also a part just exploring the use of sound," Ceresini continued. "The color guard is using flags made of metal. When they move through the air, it makes a really loud sound. We're exploring all the ways we can use sound and silence."

On Saturday, Sept. 13, Hempfield will host Opening Night in the football stadium, 340 Mumma Drive, beginning at 6 p.m. West Chester University's Incomparable Golden Rams Marching Band will perform and give clinics to the high school band members. Adam Gumble, Ceresini's predecessor at Hempfield, is WCU's band director.

In addition to performing at the slate of football games and the Homecoming parade, the Hempfield marching band will tackle a full competition season including the state championships on Saturday, Nov. 1, and the national championships at the Meadowlands in New Jersey on Saturday, Nov. 8.

Ceresini stated that there are two significant reasons that Hempfield prefers competitions to the festival format some schools now favor.

"One is historically, Hempfield has been a competitive band, so it's what our community knows and it's an important part of our legacy," he said. "The other thing is, for me as an educator, competition is an intrinsic motivator that is really hard to replicate otherwise. We talk to the kids all the time. We don't focus on our score. We don't focus on winning because we can't control what the other bands do. If another band comes out and they're perfect, they deserve to win. ... We focus a lot on what we can do as individuals to become as great as we can, and competition is a really nice way to motivate towards that because you know you're going to be evaluated. You know there's going to be a judge there. We build a lot of our culture with how hard we work and how we support each other and encourage each other and things like that, aimed at competition, but it's just kind of a tool to teach us to work hard."

Hempfield has 113 band members this fall - seven more than last year. "A lot of that is because the kids have created this really cool environment that people want to be a part of," Ceresini said. "The one really cool thing has been (that) the kids have done a great job over the past few years of being extremely passionate and encouraging towards each other. It has made our practices really fun. Because of that, other kids hear about it and join."