IRVINE- On Tuesday, December 5th, Concert Band and Festival Band held their Winter Concert under the direction of Mr. Jim Kollias at the Beckman High School Performing Arts Center. This concert was the first in which two separate levels, Concert and Festival Band, performed.

The first group on stage was Concert Band, joined by several members of the Festival Band. Musical selections included “Procession of the Nobles”, “Earl of Oxford's March”, “Sleigh Ride”, and “Bonds of Unity.” Trumpet player, Keith Ransons, performed solos on “Procession of the Nobles” and “Sleigh Ride”. Freshman Suzanne Nguyen commented, “I think it went really well. Everyone was in tune and balanced. It sounded really good.”

Next on stage was Festival Band, who played “Flourish for Wind Band”, “Sea Songs”, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, and a Holst Winter Suite which included “On This Day Earth Shall Ring”, “In the Bleak Midwinter”, and “Old Brenton Carol.” Solos were performed by Jerry Lin on clarinet, Kyle Evans on baritone, Alex Giesler and Christian Lugo on French horn, and Keith Ransons and John Park on trumpet. Regarding his solo, Jerry Lin stated, “I was kind of nervous but confident…I try not to get overwhelmed…I just play it, I don’t think too much about it.” John Park remarked about his solo, “I felt confident about it and I hit those notes. I thought it was my best concert…I couldn’t let Mr. Kollias down!”

The concert was different because it featured two different levels of concert band for the first time in Beckman history. Also, the girls in Festival Band each wore different colored scarves. Some wore the scarves around their waist, others around their neck, and some in their hair. Mr. Kollias described his inspiration for the addition as when he “saw a Bulgarian women’s choir and the ladies looked very pretty.” As for the girls in Festival Band, he commented, “Just like the concert I saw, everyone looked very pretty. The scarves added a lot of color, I liked the look.” Sophomore, Jackie Gosselin stated, “The scarves are really pretty; they were vibrant colors…It showed how we’re all unique because we didn’t all have the same color.” Another addition was that the children in the audience were each given a piece of paper and a crayon prior to the concert. On the paper was space for coloring and a list of songs from movies and cartoons that they could pick for the band to play in the spring concert. Mr. Kollias says this idea came to him “in a flash of unexpected brilliance,” and believes in making the concerts more “kid-friendly.”

In regards to how the bands will evolve in the years to come, Mr. Kollias remarked, “The band is a hard thing to see evolve because there’s so many parts that need to be filled…It’s really hard to coordinate all those people. I’m really happy where we are… I thought these were the best performances we’ve put on for the last three years at Beckman.”