Football season is over, and with it the marching band, but the Lake Zurich High School Band will be ringing in the holidays with its first concert of the year as a concert band.
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The 160 members of band, split into concert band, symphonic band and wind ensemble by grade and playing levels, will perform their first concert of the year on Dec. 10. The concert, first of five planned for the year, begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center of the high school at 300 Church St.
Admission is free but small donations will be requested for the Alexander Leigh Center for Autism in Crystal Lake, the school’s chosen recipient of the year for its annual Charity Bash.
The band has only been in “concert band mode” for six weeks, said Band Director Josh Thompson, adding: “My biggest goal is to get the band sounding like a concert band, and not like a small marching band.”
The band will present Ron Nelson’s Courtly Airs and Dances, Stars and Stripes for Christmas, music from Carmen, The March of the Toys from Babes in Toyland, The Bells of Christmas and jazz-inspired classical music like Shortcut Home by Dana Wilson, according to district officials.
“Usually the pieces are chosen with the purpose of challenging the students in each group both technically and musically,” Thompson said. “The music has to be playable, and yet it needs to stretch them to become better musicians.”
The other goal, he added, is to expose students to new genres they may not necessarily be interested in. For example, he said, the wind ensemble is playing two transcriptions of orchestral pieces, music that most students would not play unless there were in orchestra.
“They walk away with a new love for this music,” Thompson said.
Junior Anna Johnson, who plays trumpet in jazz ensemble and the euphonium in wind ensemble, said she’s never been nervous before concerts until now. This year, she said she’ll be the only person in her section.
“It’s almost as if everything I play is a solo, which is very nerve wracking,” Johnson said.
She’s been a trumpet player since she was 10, and only picked up euphonium at Thompson’s “life-changing” introduction.
“I instantly fell in love with it,” Johnson said. “The first day I took (it) home …, I played it for hours. The sound was just so beautiful to me.”
She said she worked really hard all year to get herself into the wind ensemble as the only euphonium: “I can’t imagine my life without this instrument now, and I can’t thank Mr. Thompson enough for convincing me to play it.”
Introducing new instruments and musical genres to students is something Thompson said he tries to do, by incorporating some unconventional pieces like classical and jazz into their concert repertoire.
“I think down the road they’ll appreciate classical and jazz more, even though they may not at this age,” Thompson said. “There’s a reason it’s been around for hundreds of years – it lasts.”
Christine Won is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press
Twitter @tinewon