By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
The Moapa Valley High School Band and Orchestra programs performed a Holiday Concert on Thursday, Dec. 9, to the delight of a large audience of family, friends and community members gathered at the Ron Dalley Theatre. MVHS Music teacher Ted Biggs led three different ensembles in the concert which lasted for about an hour.
The Intermediate Band started the evening with a couple of festive holiday selections including Johnnie Vinson’s “Jazzy Christmas” an upbeat blend of Christmas classics, and Bell Carol Fantasy, an arrangement of the familiar Russian carol by James Curnow. The group finished its performance with a beautiful performance of “Above and Beyond” by James Swearingen.
Biggs pointed out to the audience that the pandemic had made an impact on music and performing arts programs at the school.
“It has been two years since this group has had any performance at all,” Biggs said. “For this group that means their 8th grade or 9th grade years have been kind of lost. That has left some experience gaps and missing pieces. So we have done a lot of work making up for that lost time.”
The MVHS Orchestra took to the stage next. This string ensemble began with a stirring rendition of the Irish folksong “Danny Boy” arranged by Harry Alshin. The group then evoked a winter scene with “A Forest Snowfall” by David Bobrowitz. They ended their performance with “Fantasia on a Theme from Thailand” by Richard Meyer.
Finally, the MVHS Advanced Band performed a selection of four holiday favorites. Biggs acknowledged that even the Advanced Band had been rusty, having no performances for the 18 months leading up to the beginning of the current school year.
“But we got busy pretty fast with this school year,” he said. “Over the past 4 months, we have had more than 15 performances, including football games, assemblies and more. It has been getting up to speed pretty fast.”
The Advaced Band began with a collection of favorites in “Spirit of Christmas” by Ed Huckeby; then played a touching rendition of “Stille, Stille, Stille” arranged by James Curnow. Next the group got to mix some vocal talent in with the instrumentals in a haunting performance of ‘On An Old English Carol” by Ronald Standridge. Finally they sent the audience home humming with an enthusiastic performance of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.”
During the concert, Biggs also recognized a group of students who had auditioned for the prestigious Southern Utah University Honor Band, a challenging program which takes place in Cedar City, Utah each year.
“It is a pretty rigorous audition process that draws kids from 5 different western states wanting to get into the program,” Biggs said. “This year we had 10 students make that ensemble. That is outstanding and says a lot about the caliber of students we have here.”
