ALTON - The Alton High School Marching 100 band is preparing for another great season.
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On Friday, Aug. 1, 2025, invited community members and performers’ families could watch the Marching 100 perform their halftime show ahead of the 2025–2026 season. Matt Chesner, the new director of the Marching 100, expressed his gratitude for the band and his excitement to share their hard work with the community.
“It’s been a joy. It’s been so fun,” Chesner said. “Especially because I am new to [the students], to have them be willing to let a stranger help them and work with them and become a part of their traditions, I’ve really felt welcomed and honored to be a part of that.”
The Marching 100 is a storied tradition at Alton High School. Students come together to perform at halftime shows, parades and competitions throughout the region.
The Aug. 1 performance marked the end of the 2025 band camp. Chesner shared that the band and color guard spent the last two weeks learning “The Star Spangled Banner,” the AHS fight song, and the first two movements of the halftime show that they will perform at AHS football games in the fall.
This year’s halftime show has an “Amazing” theme, with “Amazing Grace” as the main motif of the ballad and a few lines from “Just the Way You Are” by Bruno Mars at the beginning of the show. This year, the AHS dance team will perform during halftime followed by the Marching 100 and the color guard.
Because of the heat over the past two weeks, the band missed about ten hours of rehearsal time. Chesner expressed his pride in the students for their flexibility and focus despite these challenges.
He noted that the band will go on to perform in many competitions and recitals in addition to their football and basketball halftime performances. He encourages the community to come out and support the Marching 100 and the Alton Community Unit School District #11 music program year-round.
“One of the cool things, I think, about the band program is we get to be a part of community events where we are there with the football team or the basketball team and the cheerleaders and all these different elements that make up the communal atmosphere of Alton High School on a Friday night,” Chesner said. “There’s just a whole bunch of different things the band program does, and we would love to continue to have the support of the community in all those things that we do.”
