The new Atlanta High School Band Hall has an abundance of what the music program lacked before-space.
The 174 students expected this fall will be able to sit together, play their instruments and learn their half-time show performances while viewing a huge projection screen-all with leg and shoulder room to spare.
The band will have room to store its 15 tubas, eight marimba-xylophones and four timpani. That's not even mentioning its sound equipment and stage scenery.
How about if two bands need to practice at the same time and maybe the 24 percussionists need a place to work on their routines? Formerly, the rhythm keepers had to go outside on the tennis courts.
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Pulaski Tech holds a reception raising money for the school and honoring scholarship recipients. Held at Pulaski Tech's Grand Hall Thursday, April 10.
Nope, there's plenty-plenty-of room inside now for all three groups. In fact, the building's 12,000 square feet of space is approximately three times the size of what the band had before.
Another example: New wall bins, 240 of them, will hold the students' backpacks, which formerly had to be laid down on the floor and stepped over.
Spacious restrooms have built-in benches where students can sit to change shoes. Formerly, the band space at the main campus building had no restrooms.
From the outside, Atlanta High's Band Hall building looks more like a college facility. It is a combination of beauty and practicality.
A huge driveway curves around the building and connects with a two-story covered loading dock. Loading can be done in good or bad weather.
On the inside, one is first greeted by a video screen and then sees a spacious band-director's office with huge glass windows to the right. There is no doubt who you'll see first if you come here to conduct business or music.
Down the hall to the right are the 240 backpack bins for students' books.
Then, the first door you meet opens onto a huge band room. "Huge" is the accurate assessment.
This is the concert band's rehearsal hall, with ceilings as high as a gym and large sound-absorbing panels on the wall. About 100 performers will fill this space, rehearse here and be close enough to hear one another correctly.
But this hall is not the largest.
After passing through a middle hall-which is for the percussionists with its wall mirrors to ensure drummers have their sticks raised precisely and in sync-the door opens onto the full band hall.
This 3,500-square-foot room is two stories tall. It can seat all 174 Rabbit band players expected this year and even more in years to come.
The building also has the music storage room, a cleaning and repair room with lavatories big enough to wash a baritone instrument and a second office room for the professional staff to do their work in planning programs. A new idea was to have a ceiling fold-down stairway allowing access to the building's loft space for additional storage.
Although the building may be large, every area is connected with speaker microphones for quick and effortless communication throughout.
"This may not be the Taj Mahal but we can all be together now," said smiling 14-year band conductor Keith Sanders.
The high school is ready for even more growth in the music program. And at the middle school, 86 percent of the student body is in band, leaders Kristen and David Thompson were pleased to report. In the sixth grade, every student except one has signed up for the voluntary band program, they said.
It was in Aug. 23, 2016, when the Atlanta Independent School Board accepted a $1.9 million bid from Altech Inc. of Texarkana to build the new structure. The cost is to be paid with a tax increase from $1.17 to $1.27 approved by district voters.
Band season for the coming year begins July 24 with percussion and band student leaders reporting. The full band membership reports on Aug. 1.