Wanting to start the season off on the right foot, Music in Motion traveled to Piqua on Jan. 14 with their show “Revolution” ready to be performed for the first time in front of a panel of judges.

They swept the competition, not leaving awards for anyone but themselves.

In addition to being crowned Grand Champion, an impressive accomplishment on its own, MIM won a flurry of additional awards, including Best Vocals, Best Choreography, Best Band, Best Show Design, Best Costumes and Best Male Soloist, which was awarded to standout sophomore J.R. Heckman.

Solon has won at Piqua for the past three years, but this was nonetheless a monumental feat and a perfect way to start the season.

Senior performer Carter Asnien has been on the team since his sophomore year, but beginning a new season is a different experience every time.

“It’s hard to put into words what it’s like to start off a show choir season because you can never really tell what the audience or judges will think of it,” Asnien said. “I got to sit out and watch a performance the day before Piqua…I could tell we had something amazing and that certainly gave me more confidence in the show.”

Senior performer Jeremy Klein had an appreciation for all who contributed to the show, attributing the win to a grand effort.

“I’ll start with the amazing students that give it their all every time we perform,” Klein said. “The combination of the best band in the country, a crew that can save a tower from falling over and singer/dancers that are absolutely amazing is one that is tough to contest with. Add on the incredible costumes created by our fantastic and super dedicated costume moms and the lifelike set built by our equally talented and awesome crew dads…the sweep was a nice reward for all of the hard work everyone in this group has put in.”

Junior and assistant crew lead Justin Pollack and the rest of the crew played a large role in Solon’s big win, and plan to be a driving force for the rest of the competitions.

“[Specifically], the crew does everything the singer/dancers simply can’t,” Pollack said. “We keep the set organized and put it in place outside the auditorium so it can be quickly loaded on when the entire group arrives. We make sure all of the costume pieces are together and that everything running backstage doesn’t fall apart at the seams. As Mr. F [Ferencie] says, ‘No matter what happens, you haven’t messed up until you’re seen or heard.’ No one really knows what we do, but it’s a sure awful lot.”

As award after award was announced followed by Solon’s name, a few pieces of recognition were particularly special to a group that has made some major changes to their program in the past year.

“Winning grand champion is always exciting, [but] the big thing for us was the Best Choreography award,” Pollack said. “This is something that we struggled to achieve all of last year and many times in the previous years. The new choreographers we have helped dramatically. After we swept, it was a wonderful feeling, and, being our first competition of the season, gave plenty good aspirations for the season to come.”

Klein also received the title of “Best Performer” at Piqua, but maintained that the performance was built on teamwork.

“I guess I felt mostly indifferent about [the award],” Klein said. “It’s a great honor to receive the award and all, but really what we put on the stage is a group effort and to single out one ‘best performer’ is insane because we’ve got 54 of them.”

However, even after the resounding victory, Asnien doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.

“I personally think that the complete sweep at Piqua really can be used to see that even though we achieved such great success, there is always room for improvement,” Asnien said. “…the win should be used as motivation to do so.”

In addition to its out-of-state competition in Chicago, Music in Motion has two shows left in Ohio this season (Feb. 18 in Medina and Feb. 25 in Twinsburg) and Klein wants everyone to come out and support the show.

“I’m sure it would mean the world to all of the students if we got an insanely large and loud crowd for both of those competitions,” Klein said. “We’re ‘revolutionizing’ show choir this year and you do not want to miss it.”