Submitted By: Vinnie Sorensen
On Wednesday, May 18th our students performed in our annual Spring Concert. This one, however, was notably bigger and better than ever before. The music program has seen tremendous growth over the last year with not only numbers, but the caliber of the program and the students’ musicianship as a whole. We now have five bands including a brand new Wind Ensemble and five choirs including a Men’s Chorus and the select, Green Brook Singers.
Parents were able to enjoy the Art Show as they eagerly awaited their child’s performance. The night began with the 5th grade band, a group of students that just picked up their instruments for the first time eight short months ago. They played with the technique and maturity of a much older ensemble. Their set included “Fanfare and March” and ended with the main theme from “Star Wars”. Immediately following the band was the newest group to the program, the Men’s Chorus performed. Green Brook is one of the only schools in the state that has such a robust Men’s Chorus program at the middle school level. They shocked their peers and parents with the beautiful rendition of “Home” and (with some awesome backup vocals from the audience,) “Sweet Caroline”.
The program continued the with Junior Chorus who sang three selections, including the native American folk melody, “Canoe Song”. It should also be noted that every single song was accompanied on piano (among other instruments) by Green Brook middle school students.
The jazz band brought down the house with some incredible charts including a definite crowd-pleaser, “Uptown Funk” and an a we inspiring performance of “Caravan”. Their players did an amazing job of nailing down some of the most difficult of Jazz Band favorites. After a brief intermission we moved in the second half of the evening which began with the Senior Chorus. They performed five selections including the acapella Swahili piece “Bonse Aba” and the spiritual “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel”.
The 6th Grade Band performed two pieces including a Patrick Burns’ “Pride and Purpose”. The other piece, “Knights of Destiny” featured trumpet soloist Samuel Jiang.
Green Brook Singers began with a processional version of “Bring Me Little Water Silvy” which now has over 30,000 views on Deke Sharon’sFacebook page. They finished with the Pentatonix difficult but beautiful arrangement of “Radioactive” which featured Tyler Wu on violin, Ben Kosakowski on guitar, Sam Schwartz on bass, Max Schwartz on drums, Katie Tan on piano, and Mr. Ellis on cello.
Wind Ensemble played with the precision of high school ensemble. The audience thoroughly enjoyed their set, which included some extremely difficult arrangements including Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Sheherazade”.
The night ended with the Senior Band whose theme for the evening was music from movies and Broadway shows. They played an incredible medley of John William’s pieces and ended the night with a dramatic and moving performance of “Les Miserable”.
Other accompanists throughout the night included Tyler Wu, Philip Ding, Lynn Zhou, Vivian Zhang, Annabell Puand Katie Tan on piano; Lauren Chapleski, Chris Larsen, Jason Schlachtun, John Strong, Max Schwartz, Jack Onufer, Zach Bokhari and Morgan Kyer on percussion.
Soloists featured throughout the evening included Jossie Sapia, Ambika Muralitharan, Seth Calindas, Manthan Naik, Tyler Wu, Sam Schwartz, BenKosakowski, Max Schwartz, Kyle Merritts, Thy Nguyen, Katie Strong, Aurora Baker, Samuel Jiang, Gabby Clark, Rhea Cariappa, DanaWasserman, Katie Tan, Lynn Zhou, Jason Allen, and Sean Wittmaack.
