Halloween Concerts :)

I started thinking about something today, and got very sad: I will only get to do 4 Halloween Concerts at BYU-I. (that is assuming I don't turn into a Super Super Super Super Super senior...) I love the Halloween Concerts! They are probably one of my favorite things about Fall semesters. I've only been in 2 so far, but I have loved both of them, a LOT. They are such a good experience, and super fun--they're also really good at testing your limits.

3 nights. 6 concerts. Costumes. Dialogue. Great music. Fantastic people. Relaxed concert atmosphere. What could be better, right?

So my very first semester of college was the year that our Halloween Concert theme was "Superheroes."

Halloween Concert, Oct. 2009

Let me introduce you to some of my favorite people on this planet. This group of people will forever be known to me as my "family." This is our cello section, Fall semester of 2009.

From top left: Andrew Gordon (Flash Gordon), David Clay (Mr. Fantastic),

Middle left: Sarah Arnesen (Sparkle), Rachel Gordon (Twinkle), Me (Yo Yo Ma), Kellen Maxwell (Ron Stoppable)

Bottom left: Bryant Hansen (Guitar Hero), Lindsary Barnes (Dazzle), Naomi Campbell (Mrs. Incredible), and Elise Olney (Kim Possible). I love them! It was so nice to come to school as a little freshman and have a built-in family. Four older brothers and five amazing sisters and best friends. I can't describe how grateful I am to have met them; how grateful I am that they accepted me so whole-heartedly into their group; how grateful I am to have their influence and support in my life!

Even though most of them deserted me in one form or another after this first semester :) (Andrew's on a mission, David just got engaged [yay!], Sarah's graduated, Rachel's graduated, Bryant's graduating soon, Lindsay and Elise are on missions) they continue to be an important part of my life and definitely of my memories :)

All right. Enough sentimentality.

Yup. We were definitely the coolest section. :)

This Halloween Concert was so fun. The "plot" was centered around our incredible conductor, Brother Tueller (you will definitely hear more about him throughout this blog) who was also known as "Super Conductor", his sidekick (or hero support) Brother Kempton, AKA "Semi-Conductor." We opened the concert with Danny Elfman's "Batman Suite", which is such a great piece. As the concert progressed, we discovered that the evil critic, "Simon Double Bar Sinister", was on his way to our orchestra, having already destroyed the New York and Chicago Philharmonics. Cue Wagner. Simon appears, and sits in the leather chair (pictured above) listening to us play, and zapping each section with his ray gun, rendering us completely useless (this song was written by Britten with the intent that dialogue could be written to fit the mood of the concert. Ours, therefore, was full of mocking music jokes made by our villain; i.e. "What makes up a string quartet? A good violinist, a bad violinist, someone who used to be a violinist, and someone who hates violinists." bahaha) After a terrible struggle between good and evil (we won, of course!), we closed the concert with the ever epic Superman.

COWBOYS

Fall semester 2010. The theme this year was "Cowboys."

Here's our cello section from this semester. Couple of interesting facts:

1) it is exactly split half and half: 5 returning cellists and 5 new cellists

&

2) This is the first time for a while that there's been more guys than gals in the cello section

(from the left) Grant Pray, Naomi Campbell, Mason King, me, Kellen Maxwell, Elizabeth Clarke, Brother Tueller, David Clay, Rachel Richards, Austen Weeks, and Bryant Hansen. (ignore the clown in the back. He's a french horn player who thought it'd be funny to jump in the picture) These people are great! It was such a fun semester in symphony with these crazy cellists!

As much as I loved the Superheroes concert, I have to say that the Cowboys one was a little bit more fun :) This is probably for a number of reasons; it's my second Halloween concert, the theme was COWBOYS, there was more of a chance for us to interact with the actors, the music we played was crazy fun, and Piers Tueller was home. Let me explain.

We opened the concert with John William's theme from The Cowboys, being led by our wonderful conductor, Sherriff Tueller. We then meet a travelling band of barbershop quartet singers (Brother Hansen, Brother Kempton, Brother Olson & Eli Hopkins) who are, well, not the brightest bulbs on the tree. They warn us that one of the roughest, toughest cowboys in the west--Billy Bob Baritone--is on his way to Sherriff Tueller's town! Cue Dances with Wolves. Well, as the concert goes on, we meet a travelling Cowboy Poet(Brother Ashton) whose "cow pie poetry" changed every night (in the very last concert, he was cracking jokes and mocking violinists left and right!). He brings with him a fiddler and guitarist (Brother and Sister McNiven)  Our Sherriff takes a nap, leaving the orchestra to encounter a travelling Bluegrass group under the direction of one of the quartet singers.

*note* I can't find a good recording of the other piece the Bluegrass group played--Red River--but it was epic and SO much fun; even if the Bluegrass group couldn't find their way through the song without a map! When I get the concert DVD maybe I'll figure out how to post the actual video of a lot of these things, so you can see how it really went. :)**

One of the quartet singers tries to wear the Sherriff's hat, which wakes the Sherriff up and prompts him, not for the first time in the program, to shoot his gun into the air (Brother Tueller actually had a real gun, with blanks in it--and boy was he so proud of it!!) We finally meet Billy Bob Baritone, who turns out to be less of a fierce cowboy bandit, and more of an overly dramatic singing diva. After the Sherriff sends him on his way with the Barbershop Quartet Singers as his backup group, we get back down to business with Copland's Four Dances from "Rodeo". (listen to the part at 3:56-4:15 in Saturday Night Waltz, it's absolutely gorgeous! This isn't the best recording, so go seek a better one out, or, better yet, hopefully I can figure out how to post some of the actual concert on here.) The concert ends with various people in the orchestra yelling out "It's what's for dinner!!!" (don't get the joke? Listen to the last movement of the Copland. If you still don't get it, go find someone who does.)

The concert was just good fun. There were so many ways that the orchestra could interact with the "actors" who pushed the plot along--and, oh, did we "interact" :) Again, that's probably mostly due to this kid:

This is Piers Tueller. He's my conductor/teacher's son (obviously), and quite a character. He is also one of the reasons this concert was so much more fun than last year. See, sometimes there is a limit to how goofy you can/should be in the Halloween concerts. Piers pushed it right to the limit, all the time. But the thing is, because he's here, he knows just how far he can push it before his dad gets mad. Just how goofy he can go before it's too far. So, the general rule was, be goofy, be loud, be fun...but always stay right behind Piers. And, oh, did we have fun :) For example, in one of our last dress rehearsals, we were making our way through Copland's Buckaroo Holiday, and we're nearing the end where it gets super rowdy--and the bass section explodes. Literally. Okay, not literally, but oh my goodness. See, Piers and Daniel decided to make a little noise...but a little noise to those boys = a bunch of screaming, whooping, yelling, cheering... It gave me a heart attack every single night.

I mean, of course this concert's going to be awesome: we all got to carry around cap guns! The sound of all the cap guns going off made you feel like a little kid again....the smell of the cap guns going off made you want to gag. The hallways and stage were littered with empty caps and the cap ribbons from the guns.

I guess I can't accurately describe how much I love these concerts. By the end of the three-day-2-concerts-a-night experience, we're all tired (but wired) loving each other (but hating each other) and worn out that the Sunday after the Halloween Concert, there's a bunch of zombies walking around. But they are so fun. The things that happen in the concerts make you laugh so hard your guts bust--the things that happen in between and after are the things you remember forever :)

I can't wait for the next Halloween concerts I get to be a part of! :)