001[Music] I'm just joking. [Music] I win. too much. [Music] Yeah. [Music] I see her. [Music] That's always [Music] Good evening. and welcome to the CHS band's spring concert. Um, we are going to open for you with a piece by the symphonic percussion ensemble that is called Beware the Jabberwock and it will feature the reading of the poem by Owen Star. [Applause] [Music] Was Brillig in the slidy toes? Did Guyire and Gimble in the wave? All mimsy were the boragroves and the momera's [Music] outgrave. Beware the jabberwock. My son, the jaws that bite and the claws that catch. Beware the jub bird and shun the froomiest bander snatch. [Music] He took his vorpal sword in hand. Long time the maximum foe he sought. So rested he by the tum tum tree and stood a while and
002thought. [Music] And as an upish thought he stood, the jabberwok with eyes of flame came whiffling through the moldy wood and burbled as it [Music] [Applause] [Music] name. Hey [Music] One, two, one, two, and through and through the vorpal blade went snicker snack. He left it dead and with its head he went galumping [Music] back. And hast thou slain the jabberwok? Come to my arms, my beamish boy. Oh, fragous day. Koo klay, he chled in his joy. [Music] It was brillig in a slidey. Toades did guy and gimble in the wave. All mimsy were the boragroves in the mozzout grave. [Music] [Applause] If you were here for our last concert, um, percussion ensemble is something that is very new to us, new to me as a teacher, and new to all of them as well.
003But we were driven by the fact that we have so many wonderful percussion students, especially in the symphonic band class. Um, and so they make a lot of really cool music um for just percussive instruments and it's been a real pleasure to dive into that with them. Unfortunately, we only practiced it in the space in here today once and we didn't even have everyone there, so we were all a little bit worried, but it went well. Um, so up next we will have Rituals by Roland Barrett. Um, and I did include in this concert program, uh, there's a QR code on the back that shows some notes about each piece if you are interested to read about, uh, more the the message of those pieces. So, uh, without further ado, when they're all set, we
004will begin rituals. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] The symphonic band has one more piece of music for you and uh then we'll have a couple of awards to give out before we switch places uh with the wind ensemble. This last piece is Aventura. Although the children have been calling it Ace Ventura, it has nothing to do with the movie. Um, this is a really great piece by uh James Swearing who uh writes some really great music and never misses. Am I right?
005Never misses. Yeah. Okay. [Music] Heat up here. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat up here. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Baby, hey. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat up here. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Applause] They sound huge, don't they? I [Applause] mean, we're going to take this time to hand out some awards. Um, starting with the solo and ensemble contest medals. Um, so here we go. Uh, low brass trio or low and high brass trio getting second place. Emma Hul, Chase Myers, and Taylor Rose. Come on [Applause] [Music] [Applause] down. [Music] Also second place uh Woodwind trio, Llaya Vanderver, Grace Noak, and Lucia James. [Music] I'm trying to knock these out by band so that it makes sense. First place tenor sack solo, Joel Joel Sporakus. [Applause]
006And we honored him at the last concert for best of day, which is a huge honor given to only one person that the judge thinks is the best thing they heard all day. Trumpet solo Aaron Eisenhower. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] And now uh we're going to give the outstanding freshman band member award. Uh this award is given to someone who practices really hard, who goes to contest, who does goes above and beyond uh to do their best in band every day. And the outstanding freshman this year is Joel Sparakis. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] And I'm sure it comes as no surprise, our outstanding sophomore is Aaron Eisenhower. [Applause] [Music] All right, we're going to take a brief intermission and switch places. Um, let's say 4 and 1/2 minutes. Is that ambitious? [Music] There's one segregated We're best
007friends. [Music] How did this feel? Is anyone timing me? Where are we at? That's easy. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Wow. Thank you. [Music] Hallelujah. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Let's continue. [Applause] Did Did anyone else have a solo on that one? Okay, this is some of this music has popin solos for one measure and I couldn't keep track of it all. So, I apologize if I forget to point at you to stand. Um, this is some some very sophisticated music. Um, and it has been a a quick turnaround to get this down, but they have been so amazing with all of this. Um, that last piece came in three separate movements. Um the first one
008was kind of like life is happening and the second one is um the internment of the author of these memoirs uh in internment camps in the United States in the 1940s and um you can feel the the work that's happening there. And the third movement is sad at the start but ends hopeful. And um so there's a lot of a lot of life messages in that music. It's very beautiful. Um the next one is a doozy. And so we're going to warm up a little bit more before we play A Mother of a Revolution by Omar Thomas. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat [Music] up here. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] If you know anything about music, what's
009happening there is you have 44 time and then one bar of 78, which is so close to 44, but it's not Right. Um, so if if any single person rushes ahead or drags that behind, we're feeling a little unsteady. That was really awesome, guys. Um, I'm going to give them a breather and, uh, do a few more of these. Solen ensemble contest and other awards. Second place, Alto Solo, Anthony Ko. [Applause] second place piano solo, Gabriel James. Second place, Tener Sachs solo, Joel Reed. [Music] Second place flute solo, Lily Emmes. Congratulations. And second place flute solo, Molly Mlan. If you have never seen a scoring sheet for IHSA solo and ensemble contest, um there are a lot of seconds and a lot of firsts. Um there are also thirds and fourths and fifths which are
010not as good. These people all did wonderful. Um the most important part of going to contests, however, is that they get judged by another music teacher and they get comments uh to keep getting better at what they do. Um, first place cello and piano, Charles Bass and Jonah. Oh, I should give you a first place horn solo, Charles Bass. First place cello solo, Jonah Vnowski. First place trumpet duet, Jack Reider and Sam Rael. [Applause] First place trombone solo, Quinn Behan. [Applause] [Music] First place, Alto Sachs, Logan Han. First place flute solo, Jameson Meyers. First place, woodwind duet, Aiden Bower and Kale Reigns. [Applause] Almost there. First place euphonium solo, Alex Hurst. and first place saxophone duet, Charlotte Garcia and Joel Reid. All right. Um, we are we have had our second annual senior banquet where
011we gave out most of the senior awards. Um, but I just wanted to honor our national award winners again. Um, they get a certificate and a pin. Um, so the Louisie Armstrong National Jazz Award, Gabriel James. and the John Philips Souza National Band Award, Cameron [Applause] Hrich. And a weird one to save for last, but a great one. Outstanding junior in band this year goes to Charlotte Garcia. [Applause] Charlotte has um become amazing at the bassoon, which she has only been playing for a little over a year. um and went to All State this year uh and played in the orchestra with Jonah on cello. Um really really amazing work in in learning a very difficult instrument this year. Congrats to Charlotte. I'm gonna invite Todd down. I Oh, there you are. Um Todd's gonna
012say a few words about music boosters and then we're gonna finish this out with some music. Thanks. Thank you. Well, hi. Uh for if you don't know me, I'm Todd Belnowski. I the the treasure for the music boosters. I Thanks, Matt. Yes. Um, I I found out a little bit ago that I'd be talking to you all and I had this great speech worked up in my mind, but then it just occurred to me that those words don't matter that much. The the kids behind me and the kids in all of our music programs across the district are really amazing. Not only do they do this, which has been phenomenal all night, uh, but they're in sports, they're in academic competitions, they're like the leaderboard for academic achievement in our school. They keep, uh, the
013the football games lively at halftime. They keep the basketball games ppped up the entire time. Truly an amazing group of kids. Give them a round of applause if you don't mind. So, Music Boosters plays a very small part in the success of these of these musicians. We have the opportunity to fill in the gaps, if you will, for equipment, uh, school supplies, things that are needed that allow these young people to demonstrate their musical talents for you. Whether it's the band here, our vocal ensembles, whatever it may be, if it's brand new instruments, instrument repair, uh the list goes on. Each and every year, Music Boosters gives about 20 to $30,000 to support the programs districtwide. Mr. Nickerson, I don't stand that close to the mirror in the morning. Please, a little disconcerting. The way
014that we're able to do that isn't through direct gifts of money, though we accept that. It's actually through volunteering. Uh if you look at the back of this half sheet, you'll notice an entire list of names. If yours is not on there, don't worry. There's a place for you here. Uh what we do is we run concession stands for sporting events. Uh every person on here has been has worked probably several times. There's room for your name here. If anyone here has an hour next year to volunteer, if you think you might and you are able to volunteer, I encourage you to what do they call it? Scan the QR code. Is that that what the kids are saying these days? Sign up. Join the festivities. Concessions is amazing. You get to throw pickles at
015people. I'm not kidding. You can play uh ring pop roulette with kids. It's a great time. But all that fund translates into money which allows every musician in the Columbia school district to have what they need to demonstrate their talents for you. Please join us second Mondays if you want to uh join us for our regular meeting or otherwise please just scan, sign up, volunteer and be part of the amazing story that unfolds every time these musicians perform. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Todd. And thank you for drawing everyone's attention to the amazing videography by uh Mr. Nickerson, who is hiding in the back. Um and to the beautiful video boards that our school has put in for sporting events and concerts like this. Um this is really, really cool and
016hopefully not too distracting for the performers uh to see. I I keep looking up there right when I get on there. Um it it is distracting for me a little bit. Um we're going to finish this out with two more pieces. Himm for the innocent and connect us. And I don't need to say anymore. Thank you for being with us tonight and enjoy. [Music] Hallelujah. Heat. Heat. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] I love you. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Thank you. [Music] [Applause] Hi y'all. I'm not going
017to take too much of your time. Um, if you don't know me already, my name is Lily Emmes. I'm a current senior here at Columbia High School and I will my last day is this Thursday and I will be graduating May 18th with some of these people here. Um, if you didn't know, if you knew that already, some of you here's another fact. I am part of the first AR's first four-year class along with some of the people here tonight. And to um honor that, we decided to give him a little something to represent the past four years that we got to share with each other. So, I had some people um send me some photos and I had a photo album made of all four years that us seniors have spent with AR from
018freshman to sophomore to junior and finally this year. And um it's very surreal if if we want to think about it. And looking back at all these pictures, um, I've realized how much not only I have grown or how much we have grown, but how much AR has grown as a teacher. Um, you're you're amazing. You're amazing, AR. Um, and uh, I was thinking back to um, some of the movies and the books I've read and I put a quote in the first page that I will read out to you guys now and I felt like it really fit us here tonight. Um, it's from the book slashmov Perks of Being a Wallflower. And it says, "And know these will all be stories someday, and our pictures will become old photographs and will all become
019somebody's mom or dad, but right now these moments are not stories. This is happening. and everything makes you wonder when you were listening to that song on that drive with the people you love most in this world and in this moment I swear we are infinite and I just want air to realize that we are infinite and with with these photographs in this album we will be infinite. Uh yeah. So, thank you for the past four years. Uh you're welcome. Thank you guys. Thank [Applause] you. Let's clean this place up. Have a great night. Drive safe. Thank you so much. Oh, I forgot. I forgot to