The Plant High School Marching Panther Band is the largest performing ensemble at Plant High School. It is the culmination of the varsity wind ensemble, symphonic band, jazz band and percussion. The Marching Panther Band performs at all football games, home and away, as well as playoff games, the Gasparilla parade, pep rallies and various community events. The competitive marching band of Plant High School is named the Golden Panther Regiment and competes in the Florida Marching Band Championships (FMBC) circuit. The band has consistently earned straight superior ratings at all Florida Bandmasters Association (FBA) and FMBC competitions.

The 2011 competitive production is titled TITAN! The Music of Gustav Mahler with excerpts from Gustav Mahler's Symphonies #1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7.

Gustav Mahler is widely respected in the classical community as the greatest composer ever (alongside J.S. Bach) to live because of his sheer breadth of compositions as well as the intense emotional and epic nature of his massive amounts of work. Our field production is taking on a whole new face this week and you will begin to hear the life quotes of Mahler as they appear relative to the music and you will begin to understand what kind of a "Titan" Mahler (the man) was....

Gustav Mahler was a Jewish man living in the late 19th/early 20th century Germany & Austria and he definitely saw the writing on the walls......  He spent his entire life speaking on religious persecution, political reform, social injustices and art culture as it relates to humanity and love.   He was a "Titan" because his words, music and most importantly his actions dictated that he, as a man, was to set his own path & believe his ideals & trust in humanity & show love to all. I have also attached a compilation of his most prolific life quotes on music & life... these quotes have been archived as they have served as the philosophical/musicological framework of understand him as a man and him as a composer.

At the end of the day Gustav Mahler stood for and lived out one basic philosophy (that was WELL ahead of it's time)...

Mahler Quotations

"Music - that eternally mysterious, totally unfathomable art which can penetrate like lightning into the deepest recesses of our thoughts and feelings.
Gustav Mahler"

"When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one."

"With the coming of spring, I am calm again. "

"You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion. "

"If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster."

"In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience."

"In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage."

"It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces."

"It is strange how one feels drawn forward without knowing at first where one is going."

"It should be one's sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew."

"It's not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it."

"Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift."

"Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one's way."

"Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again."

"The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks."

"The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes."

"The impressions of the spriritual experiences gave my future life its form and content."

"The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi."

"The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause."

"The real art of conducting consists in transitions."

"The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form."

"There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note."

"To judge a composer's work, one must consider it as a whole."

"What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized."

"A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything."

"All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish."

"An operetta is simply a small and gay opera."

"Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos."

"Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking."

"Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier."

"Discipline, work. Work, discipline."

"Don't bother looking at the view - I have already composed it."

"Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand."

"Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle."

"I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life."

"I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way."

"I beg of you... never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise."

"I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas - I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day."

"I have become a different person. I don't know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier."

"I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding."

"I live like a Hottentot. I cannot exchange one sensible word with anyone."

"I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment."

"If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music."

"If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies."