INDIANAPOLIS — For the first time in its history, the Pendleton Heights High School marching band has advanced to the state finals of the Indiana State School Music Association (ISSMA) competition.

The marching Arabians have qualified to take part in the 46th Annual Indiana State Marching Band Finals set for Saturday, Nov. 3, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, where they’re set to perform at 1:28 p.m.

The band took part in semistate competition at Pike High School Saturday, Oct. 27, when it and 24 other high school bands performed in Open B class.

Bands qualified for semistate by being one of the top-scoring bands in their enrollment category at their open class regional site earlier in October.

The marching Arabians performance was titled “Spintronics,” featuring music called “The First Circle” by Pat Metheny and “Dancing on My Own” by Patrik Berger.

While the Pendleton Heights band was one of the final teams to perform during the daylong competition, it turned in a fantastic performance, band director Chris Taylor said. It finished in the top 10, good enough to send them to state.

“Our class is incredibly competitive and has a lot of fantastic bands,” Taylor said.

Still, he was not surprised at the band’s accomplishment considering the effort students put into preparation.

“These students have put the work in and were ready to make this happen,” Taylor said. “This has been a build up of our program over the past several years.”

Eighty high school marching bands had been selected to participate at the ISSMA Open Class Semistate Marching Band Festival, sponsored by Music Travel Consultants.

The four semistate performance sites were Ben Davis High School (Open A), Pike High School (Open B), Decatur Central High School (Open C), and Franklin Community High School (Open D) with the top bands from each site moving onto state.