Band Takes the Stage for their Spring Concert
May 12, 2015
The band performed its last concert of the school year on Wednesday, April 30, ending the school year with a musical bang.
The concert included selections from both the jazz and the symphonic bands and featured a piece led by senior student conductor, Greg Stewart.
The concert began with the percussion recital, a piece performed solely by the drumline members. The drum line took time outside of school to rehearse their piece, which featured the drumline members providing the music for a movie trailer for the horror film, Science Fiction.
The jazz band featured the female vocalist junior Addie Achterberg in the piece “Black Coffee” and male vocalist freshman Brendan Paules in “Save the Last Dance for Me.” The Jazz band also featured many other players throughout their selections, including freshman Lucas Sherman on saxophone in the song “Pegasus” while the symphonic portion of the concert included a patriotic theme with selections including “Stars and Stripes “Forever” and “American Elegy.”
The concert also bid farewell to all the seniors in the band, and band director Chris Poole, band treasurer Eleri Burnett and band president Drew Yarborough handed out various awards to all the band members. Carl Steager, the previous band instructor at the high school, middle school and elementary levels, also appeared at the concert to announce the winner of the Steager award, a scholarship awarded to a senior band member who intends to major in music in college. The recipient of the Steager award this year was senior Anthony Stem. Stem plans to attend the Schreyer honors college at Penn State in the fall to major in music.
Stem was excited to receive the Steager scholarship, and while his last concert was bittersweet, he is looking forward to putting the scholarship to good use.
“[The last concert] was pretty emotional because it’s been quite a journey, but it was really cool because we played some incredible pieces, so I was a bit sad but also really excited at the same time,” said Stem. “[The scholarship is] an award of merit for working really hard over the last four years. It also helps that I’m going into music education, so I really hope to utilize that scholarship well.”
Stem has been involved in both the band in the school and many bands outside of school, such as PMEA, and looks forward to staying involved in music throughout his college career.
Senior Sean Slattery received the Louis Armstrong jazz award, an award given to one senior in the jazz band each year.
“It was a big honor. I feel like I’ve put a lot of work into the jazz program here,” said Slattery. “I’ve been a member of the jazz band for four years, and it was really nice to see that people are looking out and they’re appreciative of what I’ve done…it’s good to know that I’ve done good things for the program.”
Slattery was not aware that he would be receiving the award before the concert and was honored to receive it. He plans to continue his involvement in music throughout college and the rest of his life.
The concert was a great last performance for the seniors and a great first performance for the freshmen leaving the band to go out on a high note.
