For the 2025-2026 school year, the Rancho Cucamonga Marching Cougars performed the annual Parent Preview, putting on their show for the new season, “All That I Had” by Johnathan Zuniga and Eric Shriver, along with some showcases for each section of the band.
The event took place in the Cougar Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 27, at 7 p.m., with the performers practicing from 10 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. before the show.
Their main showpiece is “loosely” based on the children’s book, “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein, which is about a tree that gives itself to a young boy. Ultimately, the boy takes advantage of the tree and its kindness.
“It’s also a little bit about nature in general and how if you take too much from nature, it can be a bad thing,” said the band director, Mr. James Ana. “Towards the end of our show, you can really see an aggression and a negative post, but our show ends with an optimistic feeling of that giving is ultimately a good thing.”
During his introduction to the preview show, Ana explained to the audience that there are two props: a tree and a stump to represent the storyline as the tree starts off beautiful and lush, then wears down to be nothing but a stump the more that the boy takes from it.
President of RCMC, senior Miranda Brambila, shared some of her thoughts on performing Parent Preview shows.
“It’s really fun performing the show for the first time especially with it not being scored and you’re performing it for all your friends and family, so it’s very heartwarming and it’s more just fun than serious,” Brambila said. “It’s more I’m just putting out what we’ve done than I’m trying to do my best.”
Similarly, freshman Cadence Wang, a newcomer in band, expressed some of his opinions about performing for the first time.
“I would say that performing for the first time I’m excited, but also very nervous about it,” Wang said. “It’s my first time doing a Parent Preview show, so I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect and I was also terrified of making mistakes in front of everybody and it being super obvious.”
Parent Preview’s purpose is for RCMC students to show off to family and friends what they’ve been practicing since the beginning of the school year and over the summer during band camp.
However, Rancho Cucamonga experienced inclement weather and rain on the day of the Parent Preview. Due to unfortunate weather events, the show ended earlier than expected at around 8 p.m., but the band still continued to push through to finish their performance before the light sprinkle of rain became heavy.
Spectators who were sitting on the bleachers made their way out of the stadium to find shelter from the rain in order to talk with performers and give their congratulations.
“The friends and family preview performance was a true testament to the band’s noble creed. Nothing stops the marching band,” Joshua Lin, a past drum major for the RCMC, said. “Wind, rain, intense heat? They keep chugging and chugging, blasting away all of nature’s obstacles through intense music and visual performance.”
