In late October, Chelsea High School and Beach Middle School had an Orchestra Concert. Some things were done differently to give the concert a special spin, such as an additional piece that was played by the entire Orchestra, among other things, considering it was merely two days before Halloween, which didn’t go unnoticed by the Chelsea community.
“We got to wear, like, our costumes,” Jacob Hackett (‘27) said. “I liked how even the teachers dressed up.”
There were also other reasons the concert was enjoyable beyond the fact that everybody wore their Halloween costumes. One of those things was the music, which was played, since many recognized it from some popular movies over the years.
“There was a lot of good music,” Hackett said. “Concert Orchestra…played Pixar, medley songs, or songs from The Incredibles, Nemo, Up, all the good Pixar movies.”
Besides the appealing selection of music that the Concert Orchestra played, there was also a highlight for the High School performance. Instead of “just” playing a song, there was also a visual element to parts of the concert, which made it more memorable in the minds of both the audience and the players.
“The Pirates of the Caribbean, which we played in the dark with the movie behind us, and it was…really cool,” Hackett said.
The memorable music serves a second purpose besides just engaging the audience. The concert was actually started due to the success of a similar tradition at another school, or rather, university, and there are hopes to make the Halloween concert an annual occurrence at Chelsea High School.
“So this concert actually started because Mr. Peters went to U of M…and they had a Halloween concert, and he wanted to bring that here and make it an annual thing,” junior Caleb Grimm said.
The preparations for the concert began as school started up in late August, and practice ramped up in September. The time to practice was needed, since some parts of the concert were difficult to master, and it took until the very end to get everything just right.
“So there’s a spot in the dromer suite [a traditional Scandinavian folk tune] that we played, and the violas were working a whole lot to try to get it working,” Grimm said. “The day of the concert, we finally pulled it together…and it worked; it was very great.”
The concert, as well as the orchestra and band in general, has a big impact on the entire Chelsea community, not just students and their families. Many players take great pride in what they do, and hearing from audience members that they enjoyed the concert can mean a lot to them.
“I've heard…a lot of good things about ‘Oh, you guys played really well in such and such song’ and it was really cool to see that,” Hackett said.
