Marching to their own beat: Ardrey Kell band thrives as the largest in CMS
Despite a budget of just $750 for the school year, the Ardrey Kell Mighty Knight Marching Band continues to thrive as the largest program in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools system.
Entering his second season as the Ardrey Kell marching band director, Andrew Francis already had the 150-person organization starting strong while wrapping up the third and final week of band camp before school started Aug. 28.
With the theme of electricity for this year, the marching band has a slew of songs to bring the crowd a bit of nostalgia and some classics to jam out to during halftime.
“We’ve developed the program to be fun, entertaining and energetic,” Francis said, “while also being highly competitive, which is something that we value here.”
The Ardrey Kell Mighty Knight Marching Band
Like many other high school marching bands across the country, COVID hit Ardrey Kell’s programs hard, and student numbers had dropped significantly. But over the past few years, Ardrey Kell has seen those numbers grow.
Just last year they had 85 members in their band, according to Francis.
“We’ve had so many conversations post-COVID about how education has changed, how it’s going to continue to change, how can we adjust to fit that and it’s not an easy thing to do,” he said. “But it’s something that we’re just continuing to do, so we figure out ways to get the kids to love music and love band again.”
The band’s performance program features three full-sized concert bands, a jazz program and a percussion ensemble. They all involve students who practiced in the summer rain during camp to perfect their sound as the school year approached.
The band’s first performance was set for Aug. 29, at the end of the first week of school.
Marching band changes for the new year
This season will include new uniforms for the band, Francis said. Every 10 years, the program gets new uniforms, and this year marks another decade of the Mighty Knight Marching Band. Uniforms aren’t the only thing the group was looking forward to.
The band is returning to the Bands of America Stage, the competitive circuit for nationally ranked marching bands across the United States.
The band will also be traveling across the Carolinas to Myrtle Beach in October to perform at the Bands of America Conway Regional in the Coastal Carolina University stadium. Locally, the band will be participating in Band Beat at Catawba Ridge High School in Fort Mill, S.C., and the Old English Festival at Northwestern High School in Rock Hill.
The group is heavily involved in all the festivities and will perform in the homecoming parade that starts at Knight View Elementary School just across the street and then goes through the high school campus, middle school campus and back.
“We get to see basically three generations of the Ardrey Kell community, and the marching band gets to kind of lead that parade,” Francis said. “So that’s a blast.”
Behind any successful band is funding to help students and directors get the resources they need.
With total program expenses of $100,000, that leaves the Ardrey Kell band needing to participate in a lot of fundraising events. They also collect student fees of $850 per participant to help with funding.
While there are financial aid opportunities offered, the high fees for students are a challenge Francis hopes can be rectified soon.
The director behind the band’s sound
Francis said that the support he’s felt from not only his band students but also the parents, administration and the community has been unconditional. It has made the past two years smooth and enjoyable.
“The students have been really absorbing to my changes, into my adjustments into how I run things, and they’ve just been doing a great job with it. There’s so many great moments that pop out,” Francis said. “All the concerts this past year were just phenomenal. The kids work so hard.”
Francis’ biggest dream is to take his band to perform at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade one day.
Recently, the Ardrey Kell band was invited to play with pop band AJR at PNC Music Pavilion. It was a change of scenery for most of the students, as they went from performing in front of their high school peers and families to 8,000 people.
For the freshmen in the band, it was their first performing experience, which is one they will never forget, Francis said.
Francis has had a special place in his heart for marching bands from an early age. In high school, he struggled to find something that clicked or felt “just right” until he joined the marching band in his small hometown at Jimmy C Draughn High School in Burke County.
“I came home one day after watching my band director just be super silly and fun on the field and just having fun with the students. And I looked at my mom, and I was like, ‘Mom, I’m gonna be a band director.’ And she goes, ‘OK.’ And I never once wavered on that want,” Francis said.
He stuck to his word. Now, 10 years into his journey as a band director and six years into teaching, Francis wants to make students feel the same way he did years ago. His first year as a teacher was during the peak of COVID in 2020, where Francis started out teaching choir and a band class in Catawba County.
The students couldn’t even sing in class because everyone had masks on.
All they could do was look into music theory and hold hand bells, Francis said. “In the band world, it’s so hard to recover from something like that. Luckily, we’re starting to see things come somewhat back to normal,” he said. “I’ve just been really blessed with all these (opportunities) so early in my career.”
This story was originally published September 2, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Marching to their own beat: Ardrey Kell band thrives as the largest in CMS."
