High school bands do battle at Harwood on Friday
October 18, 2025 | By Lisa Scagliotti 
Harwood drummer Emmett Lisai performs at Battle of the Bands 2022. File photo by Gordon Miller
Harwood Union High School’s stage will be the battleground on Friday for the fourth annual Battle of the Bands.
The friendly musical competition has now grown into a daylong event in the fall with the promise of a special performance at Higher Ground in South Burlington in the spring. Newly branded as Sonic Futures Battle of the Bands + Music Summit, Harwood music teacher Bryan Boyes described the event as a “one-of-a-kind opportunity for student musicians in Vermont.”
Created by Harwood’s Music Department, Sonic Futures has blossomed into a popular music education project that bookends the school year with performance opportunities for Vermont student musicians and bands. The first part, happening this week, presents a fall music summit and battle of the bands; it concludes with a spring youth music showcase at Higher Ground. The first one was held in May.
“Every production aspect of the fall Battle of the Bands + Music Summit is run by the students, including show hosting, producing a multi-cam livestream, and light and sound operation,” Boyes explained.
In addition to the students visiting Harwood for the event, Harwood media students work on the production end, handling the livestream, photos, and audio, he said.
Sixteen bands from 10 high schools are on the program. “This year, we had more applicants than we could accommodate, so all of the bands needed to provide a brief audition video to qualify for the main stage event,” Boyes said. In all, the event is expected to draw about 65 performing students with others planning to take part in the afternoon workshops.
Schools with bands on the competition roster in addition to Harwood are: BFA St. Albans, Milton, Montpelier, North Country, Northfield, Spaulding, Stowe, Twinfield, U32, Winooski and Woodstock.
“The education reach of this project extends not only to Harwood students, but also to student musicians from across central and northern Vermont,” Boyes noted.
The participating student bands from central and northern Vermont will spend the afternoon working with celebrated Vermont music producers and songwriters, Jer Coons, Cintia Lovo and Eric George. Students in all aspects of the production will attend workshops on music business with Matt Rogers, program director for The Flynn performing arts center in Burlington; songwriting and album production with noted producer-songwriter Jer Coons; and lead guitar with Bob Wagner, band member with Kat Wright.
As a result, each band walks away from the event with tools and resources to build out their brand and book future performances, Boyes said.
The Friday event is a competition, however, and the winning band will be awarded a full-day professional recording session with Coons at his jer&co studio. The top three acts will be featured performers at the Sonic Futures: Youth Music Showcase at Higher Ground in the spring.
Another layer of opportunity comes from Harwood’s strong relationship with the University of Vermont’s music education program, which provides its music education students who shadow and help support the event. “We’ll have about 12 UVM music ed students joining us to support and to build hands-on training in popular music education,” Boyes said. “This is an incredibly unique learning opportunity that previously has not been available to Vermont’s future music educators.”
In addition to the Harwood music program, Sonic Futures has support from the Mad River Valley Rotary Club and Winooski Valley Music Educators Association.
Friday’s Battle of the Bands starts at 7 p.m. in the Harwood auditorium. Admission at the door: $5 students, $10 adults, $15 family.