Fine Arts department keeping busy during winter season

During the winter and holiday season, the Riverside Fine Arts department hosts and has students perform at a number of events. The holiday season is one of the main times when RB students get a chance to showcase their artistic abilities.

The main musical event during the season is the Holiday Concert. An annual tradition, the Holiday Concert is an excellent display of students’ musical talent and hard work. This year the concert took place on Thursday, December 10^th. Students from the bands, choirs, and the orchestra all performed for students, staff, families, and local community members.

In addition, several other musical groups performed, or will perform at other events. The Madrigal Singers, RB’s premier vocal group, had a staggering number of concerts during December. With over eight concerts in December alone, The Madrigal Singers have been busy filling the surrounding community with holiday cheer.

The annual All State music festival is at the end of January. RB has six students representing our high school this year, and the music faculty is excited to have such a large representation. Being selected as an All State Finalist is a significant achievement and requires lots of hard work and effort.

In February, the music department begins its “winter concert” series, an event featuring all three music departments performing concerts in three successive weeks.

Music is not the only area where students are displaying their talents and abilities. The RB dance program, in particular the Repertory Dance Ensemble, is busy during the winter season. The talented dancers preformed at the Riverside and Brookfield Holiday Festivals on December, 4^th 2009, and have a number of concerts planned for January and February. On January 15^th, the Dancers are hosting a concert in the Little Theater to raise money for AIDS research.

In addition to the numerous concerts, the RB dance program is submitting two of their dances to be potentially preformed at a state dance festival. Committee meetings are also starting for the Illinois High School State Dance Festival, as it will be held here at RB for the first time ever.

Drama students are also busy during this time of the year. Improv Club, a new club here at RB, had their troupe put on a performance on December 11^th, 2009.

In the art world, the murals that students have been working so hard on were finally unveiled on December 4^th, 2009. The Winter Art show, the Art Department’s biggest winter event, is being held on January 7^th, soon after school resumes.

Musicians perform annual Holiday Concert

On Friday, December 11^th 2009, RBHS musicians preformed the annual Holiday concert for both students, staff, parents and other community members. During the day, the musicians preformed an abbreviated version of the full concert for students and staff. Later in the evening, the full concert, involving all musical groups performing all their prepared music, took place.

This year, due to construction on the building, the concert was held in the gymnasium, as the auditorium is mid-renovation. While probably not the ideal location for the concert, as the gym isn’t built with acoustics in mind, the gym worked well enough and the concert was still able to be held. The renovated Auditorium will be back in use for future concerts.

Band Director James Baum was very pleased with the concert, stating, “I thought [the winter concert] was great! All the groups sounded wonderful, but I was especially pleased with the orchestra, the chamber orchestra, and the Jazz ensemble.”

Students in all music departments, band, orchestra, and choir, preformed various holiday songs for the crowd. The concert started out with the combined ensembles playing all together and ended with the traditional playing of “White Christmas” with alumni helping to sing.

The night lasted about an hour and a half, and was filled with over twenty musical acts. Highlights from the show included the Chamber Orchestra playing “Winter” by Vivaldi featuring freshman Kenzo Esquivel, and the Madrigal Singers singing a highly comical rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The Jazz ensemble’s tunes were also a crowd favorite.

Baum added, “Senior Jim Sit played a really artistic and tasteful solo on Gingerbread Boy, and Kenzo Esquivel and the chamber orchestra were sublime.”

RB guitarsits perform for youth group

Two Musicians from RB displayed their talents at Stickney’s Saint Pius X Catholic Church on Friday, the 20^th. Sophomore Conor Fagan and Junior Erik Kramer played at what was, for both, their second live performance. They played side by side with two other small local bands in a fundraiser for the Step by Step youth group of Saint Pius.

“My friend is in the youth group, and when they asked me to play, I jumped on the opportunity,” said Fagan, “It was fun, I enjoyed interacting with the crowd.”

Kramer said, “It was nice and I think I did a decent job. I heard about it from Conor and I decided I wanted to play as well.”

The Youth group regularly takes part in service programs, retreats, and fundraisers, but Friday’s fundraiser was to raise funds for the youth group itself.  The fundraiser was an unplugged guitarist event, where local bands were anticipated to play for anyone who paid the five dollars admission price.

Unfortunately, the church was unaware that Morton East High School held their own “Battle of the Bands” event on the same date, which affected the amount of bands that could be found, as well as the audience turnout.  

Fagan and Kramer both performed solo pieces, as well as a duo. In one song, Fagan was also accompanied by his fellow band member, Clement Wink. A sample of the songs performed includes an acoustic cover of Neile Young’s Damage done, performed by Kramer, and an acoustic cover of Sweet Dreams, performed by Fagan.

Both Fagan and Kramer also played some of their own original material.

Fagan chose to play his original work; “Gerry Lee”, which he says is about his father’s friend in Ireland. “I chose to play this song because it has a balance of mellowness and energy”.

Out of the two songs Kramer has written, he chose to play “Not a Day Too Soon”.  

“I chose to play it because it’s good to play live and it sounds good with my classical guitar. I wrote it last May, I like to write songs about what’s going on at that time”, said Kramer. Kramer provided his myspace page, www.myspace.com/erikkramermusic  for anyone interested in hearing some of his music.

Fagan and Kramer played alongside local bands We Drive Yeah, and the Brian and Josh Band.

RB’s musicians and the other bands were found and asked to play by members of the youth group. Youth minister Patrick Koren said he decided an unplugged event was the way to go to “show the diversity between the bands.”

Koren also mentioned he plans on doing the event again, and is already planning another in spring. Koren welcomes all to the next event, regardless of what religion they follow, don’t follow, or anything else. This was the first time the Step by Step youth group had an unplugged event.

Both Kramer and Fagan said they would play again, but Fagan mentioned the program should “expand a little’.

“Hello Chicago” – Owl City stuns at the Metro

On Friday September 25^th, Owl City arrived at Chicago as part of their Ocean Eyes album tour. The electronic band from Minnesota, headed by Adam Young, stunned a crowd of close to five hundred at the Metro in downtown Chicago.

As my brother and I drove up to the theater, conveniently placed right next to Wrigley field, we saw crowds of high school and college students lined up all the way down Clark Ave. Although we arrived just fifteen minutes after the doors opened, we were relatively far back in the theater. The Metro itself is a relatively small venue in relation to others, there wasn’t a bad spot to stand in the theater.

After thirty minutes of standing packed in the theater like sardines, the show finally got started. Most concerts have at least one opening act and Owl City was no exception. We stood towards the back of the theater as some seventeen year old walked out on stage with a lion hat on. Yes, you heard me correctly, A lion hat. My doubts only greatened as he introduced himself as Unicorn Kid. However funny this kid looked, I couldn’t help but start dancing along with the crowd as he started to play. I don’t actually know how much he was doing live, but the electronic synth runs and bass beats so loud you could feel your nose cartilage vibrating were more than enough to get the crowd even more pumped up.

Unicorn Kid played for about twenty five minutes before Norwegian singer and songwriter Kate Havnevik appeared on stage. I didn’t like Kate’s style of music as much as the previous act, but she was a talented performer and had a good voice.

When Kate finished, you could sense that the crowd was becoming antsy for Owl City to come out. Small technical details only furthered the anticipation, but all the tension was released when Adam and company walked out on stage. They opened with “Cave In”, a popular track off of the new album. Throughout the concert, almost all of the Owl City essentials were played, as well as some lesser known songs. After playing their entire set, Owl came back on to end with their most popular single, “Fireflies.”

If you have ever listened to anything by Owl City, you would think that a lot of stuff would be prerecorded at a live show; however this was not the case. Adam, who sang as well as playing synth and electric guitar, came out on stage with an incredibly talented ensemble of musicians. Breanne Duren, known for her previous work with lead singer Young, sang backup while playing two different keyboards. A cellist, violinist, drummer, and backup guitarist also added to the live effect. I would say probably 90% of all the music was live.

Throughout the entire show, the crowd was going crazy, singing and totally immersing themselves in the music. It was an incredibly fun crowd to be a part of, and the music definitely didn’t disappoint. If you are an Owl City fan, I highly recommend that you try and get tickets the next time they come to Chicago.

The Halls are alive with the sound of music

As students clamber out of their 55 minute lectures, they have to endure various types of music for four minutes every passing period.

Due to the inflow of student and teacher requests, new music will now be played. Secretary Betty Sharp in the principal’s office explained the process of how the hallway music works. When a compact disc is delivered to the office, it must first be listened to make sure it lacks any vulgarities.

“Anything that goes onto that machine must be cleared by Mr. Passeralla,” she said.

Anyone can give a CD into the office, but they should make sure it’s clean. Sharp suggests attaching a sheet with the lyrics to all of the songs. When the disc is declared vulgarity free, it is taken to room 163 where a CD player is constantly playing. The CD player is constantly playing because once the bell goes off the speakers are turned on and the CD plays for exactly 4 minutes. This is why listeners may notice the same song always plays at a certain time; the disc is always on a loop.

Regarding the lack of musical variety, Sharp said “As soon as things calm down [we hope to have a lot more of it].”

Hopefully things will calm down fast.