Naugatuck High School Spring Concert

“Raise your torch, mount your horse
Screw your courage to the sticking place
We’re counting on Gaston to lead the way” - The Mob Song from ‘Disney’s Beauty and The Beast’ by way of Act 1 Scene 7 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Naugatuck, CT - The annual Naugatuck High School Spring Concert was held on Wednesday evening in the beautiful Davis Auditorium on the NHS campus. For the first time, the program of events included both choral and instrumental performances and ended with a spectacular combination of them both. The combined concert still clocked in at under two hours. The artwork featured on the cover of the program was done by Brianna Soubannarath.

Robert Hughes, Director of the Instrumental Ensembles, welcomed the family and friends that had come out to enjoy an evening of music. He explained that the performances of the vocal music students and the instrumental music students had been combined into one concert for the convenience of family members. Surprisingly, the auditorium seats were far from full for the combined concert.

The Jazz Band opened the concert with three numbers. “Chameleon” by Victor Lopez featured Jason Pimpinelli on alto sax and Tyler Suarez on a rockin’ solo on electric guitar. Mr. Suarez played a portion of his solo behind his head, prompting Mr. Hughes to joke: “For the record, I taught him everything he knows.” “Take Five” by Mike Lewis featured Michael Martinez on soprano sax. The final piece was the classic Jackson Five “I Want You Back” by John Wasson, featuring Justin Simoes on a trumpet solo.

Chorus was up next, under the direction of Jennifer Fatone. They opened with “The Sound of Silence,” with a choral arrangement by Frank Metis. This was followed by “Bring Me Little Water, Silvy” by Greg Gilpin that was highlighted by four body percussionist who performed while singing.

The by-audition Chamber Singers then took to the stage in black dresses and tuxedos. “The Road Home” by Stephen Paulus was a quiet song that my alumnus remembered as a Regional piece and the sopranos sounded especially nice on this one. “Bonse Aba” by Victor Johnson was followed by “Cantate” by Shane Dittmar with some impressive dynamics. Before their final piece, Ms. Fatone invited former Chamber Singers to join the current members on the stage for their classic number “Goodnight, It’s Time to Go.” My college freshman quickly headed onstage and took his place with the baritones, and he was joined by several other former Chamber Singers. Meanwhile, a senior current member of the group presented their director with a gift of a lantern in appreciation for all her hard work.

Mr. Hughes shared that the members of the Concert Band had chosen 100% of their repertoire for the evening. “Arabian Dances” by Ronald Barrett reminded me of ‘Aladdin’ and featured measures of clapping. Vincent Biancarelli had a clarinet solo and Elizabeth Saddig performed on flute. “Suite from The New World,” arranged by Michael Story, was performed in three movements. “Paint It Black” arranged by Ronald Barrett closed the set.

Symphonic Band opened with “For the New Day Arisen” by Steven Barton; it had some great percussion parts. “The Red Covered Bridge” by Robert Sheldon featured Emily Burns on clarinet. The closing piece, “Foundry” by John Mackey, began the second hour of the concert with the sounds of a factory for casting metal. The first and third numbers had been performed at the music festival that students attended during their recent trip to Iceland.

The members of the Concert Choir waited in the side aisles of the auditorium while the risers were set up. Then they began to sing “Viva la Musica” (Long Live Music) by David Brunner, surrounding the audience with sound, and continued the piece as they moved to their places onstage. The result was a layering of sound as the basses, altos, tenors and sopranos took their places. “The Journey” arranged by Joseph Martin was accompanied by Gina Hepp on violin. The choir’s final piece was a medley of songs from the classic “The Phantom of the Opera” arranged by Ed Lojeski. The students worked hard to perform with the necessary emotion for the numbers from the Broadway show that were not in the order they appear in the musical.

Before the close of the concert, Ms. Fatone thanked the high school administrators (I saw principal Jan Saam in the audience,) the teachers at the high school and the accompanist Mark Focarile.

The finale was an attempt to do something that has never been done at NHS. The music department decided to perform a piece with the combined bands and choirs, admittedly a massive undertaking. They ordered the sheet music for a medley of music from the Broadway show “Beauty and the Beast,” arranged by Roger Emerson. When the music arrived, they discovered that it contained only half of the parts that they needed for the musicians in the NHS band. To the rescue came Naugatuck elementary music teacher Emanuel Arboleda, who undertook the task of writing the parts for the missing instruments and even rearranging some parts for a more cohesive sound. The result was 10 minutes of Broadway quality music, 450 measures of musical perfection.

The choir members parted to leave an aisle for the two conductors to see each other, and it worked. Unfortunately, the audience could not see the orchestra, but we could certainly hear them. The singers clearly enjoyed every note of the medley and overall it was an impressive way to end another wonderful NHS Spring Concert. It rivaled any pit orchestra backing a full production of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and made me wish that somehow the drama students at Naugatuck could launch a full production of the musical on their brand new stage.

All photos by Nancy Sasso Janis