The performance of the La Porte High School Bands Thursday evening proved the pandemic isn’t slowing down the students’ talents.
The concert, which included the symphonic bands and wind ensemble, delivered more than a handful of songs that entertained the audience while challenging the students’ skills. A few songs featured a different melody composed by four gifted players, Esther Chairez-Munoz, Damon Burkhart, Abbas Hakim, and Elizabeth Hopper.
The evening began with the wind ensemble performing “A Festival Prelude” and “The Thunderer.” The woodwind section played “Sarabande,” and the percussion section performed “Montana Mile.”
Senior Farrah Coddington, who plays the euphonium, was excited to perform for the audience.
“I’m really involved in band, so I’ve done so many concerts that I can’t even count how many I’ve done,” Coddington said. “I’m not nervous. I get excited. When we work hard, we get the reward of showing people all the work we have done.”
Coddington has played the euphonium for the last seven years. Her favorite song at the concert was “The Thunderer” by John Phillip Sousa.
“It’s a march, and usually my instrument doesn’t have the melody, but in Sousa’s marches, we usually have some interesting parts," she said.
Coddington doesn’t plan to get a degree in music as she heads to college, but she would like to continue performing and taking lessons.
The symphonic band performed two songs: “Adagio for Winds” and “A Renaissance Pageant.” The bass section performed “Ave Maria.”
The freshman and concert band finished the concert with three songs that included “Ballet of the Gnomes” and “Ancient Ritual.” The woodwind section was featured by performing “Courtly Dance.”
Freshman Mahsie Goff played the crashing symbols during “Ballet of the Gnomes” and the timpani during “Ancient Ritual.” Goff played the flute while in middle school but decided to play percussion in high school, an experience he called a change in his career path.
“Absolutely ‘Ancient Ritual’ is my favorite because of the oomph it has,” Goff said.
Goff said his favorite part of performing is the audience applause.
The conductors were La Porte teachers, Joseph Clark and Matthew Sullivan.
“I was really happy about how the concert went,” Clark said. “Coming out of a year of COVID, we weren’t sure what to expect going into the year, but they’ve surpassed all of our expectations. We were really pleased.”
Clark said he and Sullivan chose a variety of songs, so the students are not playing the same types of songs all the time.
“We try to mix things that they’ll be successful with, and that will help them to grow a little,” Clark said. “I think that we found the right balance.”
Sullivan agreed with Clark regarding the performances of the students.
“I thought tonight was wonderful,” Sullivan said. “We are just lucky to have great kids. They are all outstanding, hardworking, and well-behaved.”
Sullivan said going into the new school year was a bit unpredictable because many hoped that the pandemic would be over.
“The biggest surprise for us was today when we had 100% attendance both in class and on stage. We think it is because we had the concert,” Sullivan said.
The pandemic changed the way students auditioned for the bands this school year. Sullivan said the concert band is all freshmen and non-audition. The symphonic band is sophomores, juniors and seniors, and non-audition. The wind ensemble is typically sophomores, juniors, and seniors who have auditioned and been invited to play.
“We did more of a student survey and also playing tests, but it wasn’t a normal audition because of COVID,” Sullivan said.
To see a list of upcoming events for the La Porte Community School Corporation, please visit https://www.lpcsc.k12.in.us/en-US/calendar.