Mixed Reviews for the Spring Concert

Albany High School’s Spring Concert brought the Little Theater to life Tuesday night.

Symphonic Band continued to impress, opening the big night for music students.

Concert Band followed with a good performance of a bad selection: “Latin Americana” by Ronald Hammer. The piece embodied common stereotypes of Latin music. But the Advanced Performance Band followed up strongly with a collection of Stevie Wonder hits. The energy was there.

String Orchestra was promoted to performing third in Tuesday’s concert as a result of earning a Superior Command Performance at CMEA last March. Junior Brian Aller said, “String Orchestra was really good. They’ve made huge improvements since the class was created for years ago. It’s also a bigger orchestra in size than they’ve ever had before!”

Jazz Lab performed fourth. Senior Ariel Vento was impressed by the “nice groove and good solos.” These up-and-coming musicians have vastly improved since the beginnning of the year. Watch out for some of these freshmen three years from now when they’ll be at the top of their games.

Albany High’s award-winning Jazz Band kept the high energy alive, although band members were far from satisfied with their performance. Senior and trumpet soloist Megan Moss complained, “It could’ve been better. I mean it was okay, but the last song - we did it better than we did at Ashkenaz, but there was still room for improvement on it. That was possibly my last performance with Jazz Band, which is sad. But I had fun.” The last song, “Deed I Do” by Walter Hirsch & Fred Rose featured Junior tenor saxophonist Kamal Ghammache-Mansour in his third solo of the night, Junior Ahmed Khater on trombone, Senior Mark Barroll on trombone, Moss on trumpet, and Sophomore Mike Gaunt on trumpet. It’s too bad the performance couldn’t have satisfied the Jazz Band’s graduating seniors who have stuck with the Albany music program for so long.

The always highly anticipated Rhythm Bound closed the night. However, many left for home, disappointed with Rhythm Bound’s performance. A student who wishes to remain anonymous felt that Rhythm Bound lost their usual energy. The band, which has often been the only choreographed AHS band in the past, did not dance. And Rhythm Bound did not receive calls for an encore as they have so often received in recent years.

Although unavailable for comment, future AHS music teacher Craig Bryant observed the bands Tuesday night. He will replace the current music teacher Tom Lilienthal, who is moving to Mexico, next August.

2 Responses

1. 8:24 AM on July 10th, 2007orchestra member:

   haha string orchestra sucked that night! omg. mr lilienthal made it sound like we were amazing and that performance was horrible!!! off beat, didnt end when he cut us off, out of tune, we all cringed when we watched the tape of the performance. XP oh well… at least we did well at CMEA!

   its too bad that lots of band members and choir kids were unhappy with their performances at the end of the year… maybe next year will be better.

2. 6:46 PM on July 22nd, 2007sophie:

   yeah this concert wasn’t as good as the winter one… i think that was because of something else though… good job everyone and i am hear to support all you band geeks

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