Welcome to our Spring Orchestra Concert for 2025!! Our theme for tonight's concert is Pirates! Throughout history, the fables of the pirate and pirate culture has been an inspiration for the arts. Countless books, paintings, songs, and movies explore the tales of swashbuckling renegades to the extant that these villains of society seem heroic! Halloween costumes and team mascot's confirm that as well.
The pieces performed by the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade orchestra tonight are no exception. Each are filled with haunting melodies, minor or modal accompaniment, and sea shanty driving rhythms, along with contrasting slow sections dripping in despair that will stir emotions and excite the listener!
Contrasting these selections will be bright, major keyed selections from the Classical repertoire that will display our work in the standard technique.
The WAMS Philharmonic will return to the theme with two vastly different pirate themed pieces. Pirates of Penzance, by Sir Arthur Sullivan is a well known operetta with an extremely recognizable, Rossini/Mozart like overture that is filled with toe tapping, whimsical melodies. This will be followed by Soon Hee Newbold's "A Pirate's Legend", a musical representation of the story of "Treasure Island" that will unfold to us through interesting sound effects from the instruments, and a powerful fanfare-like climax to conclude the piece, and the evening!
The students have been working very hard on all of these selections, and we do hope you do enjoy the concert tonight!