Mount Olive Middle School Band Wins Rutgers University’s “Battle of the Bands”

The Mount Olive Middle School band won the second Rutgers University “Battle of the Bands” contest, and this fall hopefully will be visiting SHI Stadium in Piscataway during the 2022 season and attending a Big Ten football game to play the Scarlet Knights fight song, “The Bells Must Ring,” with the collegiate band.

“It’s really exciting for the students and the school,” says Melany McQueeny, Department Chair of Music for grade 6 – 12.

McQueeny had received news of the contest via email. “I looked at the email and I thought, ‘This might be something fun.” McQueeny, who teaches the 7th grade band and will be teaching also the 8th graders come this fall, printed out the parts of the fight song that are heard after every Scarlet Knight football and basketball game. “I asked the students if they wanted to do it, and I told them that if we did this, we wouldn't find out until June.” The band members were enthusiastic in their response, but had two weeks to learn the song and worked hard doing so. “For the level of music that that song is, and the difficulty, it's a very quick turnaround, and especially when I see the students for under 50 minutes a day, and some students I see every other day because I split them with the chorus teacher.”

Rutgers had invited New Jersey middle school bands to submit a video performance of them performing “The Bells Must Ring.” Mount Olive Middle School was a finalist against Joseph R. Bolger Middle school of Keansburg, and Pine Hill and South River Middle Schools. “I had actually spoken to one of the high school band directors who is a graduate of Rutgers University, and I asked him, ‘Do you want to come down and bring your sousaphone?’” McQueeny says. “He came down with the sousaphone and he told the students some cool things that they could do within the fight song and worked on it with them, and they recorded it, and then I submitted a video.” McQueeny received notice about the win the day before the spring band concert, and announced it to the students and the community that evening.

Rutgers University Band Director, Todd Nichols, will in the future be reaching out to McQueeny regarding the date that the middle school band will join his at the stadium, but it all depends of course on safety precautions with the COVID-19 pandemic. “Hopefully we'll be able to get it in because I think it would be so exciting,” says McQueeny, who has been teaching in the Mount Olive School District for 16 years.  

McQueeny looks forward to working with Nichols, who was named in the spring President of the Big Ten Band Director's National Association. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Todd as a Band Director and what he's been able to accomplish. I've known Todd for many years because we used to play in a professional level wind ensemble together. We went to the same college but he graduated before me. I knew him when he was a Band Director at Roxbury High School, and when he was at Edison High School. We've kind of always crossed the same paths, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him as a Conductor and as a Band Director, and so I'm really excited.”

The trip will mean much to the students. Yes, they are contest winners, but more than just heading to Piscataway to play side-by-side with the RU band, it will give them actual collegiate experience. “When we actually do this, it has nothing to do with me. It's about the experience that the students are going to have to sit there with collegiate level musicians and to watch a really fun football game,” McQueeny says. “Just being within that entire atmosphere. This is an experience that the students will remember forever, seeing what you can do at a collegiate level and especially at a Big Ten school. This is a memory for them. I'm so happy that I can be part of creating that for them, and I'm very, very grateful to work in a district that is so incredibly supportive of the arts and will go above and beyond.”