Review: Bandorama!

Welcome to Bandorama!

I walk into the Foxboro High School Gymnasium a few minutes late- the parking lot is absolutely filled. When I get to the door, I initially think I've stumbled in the wrong way. I'm facing the rear of the band. But when I look closer, I realize that the band I'm looking at isn't even playing right now. The fifth grade band is performing all the way across the gym.

When I wrap my mind around the notion of a concert in which the five bands are always set up and the lights never go down, I realize this is a really cool idea. It cuts the transfer time between groups down to a couple of seconds, and everyone can sit close enough to watch their own children's band.

Evidently, I'm not the only one who finds the concept exciting; there are no fewer than four TV cameras recording the show. Apparently, they've been putting Bandorama on at FHS for more than ten years.

The concert begins, as I noted above, with the fifth grade band. Over the next seventy minutes, the groups get older and older, and as a consequence, more and more talented. From what I can hear (it takes a while to find a seat), the youngest band here is a solid starting point. The sixth grade band, as expected, is even better. Though I'm directly behind them, I still enjoy their rendition of “Latin Fire”.

Like all the non high school bands performing tonight, the 7^th grade band opens with a rousing march. The group features the first few soloists as well. The songs pass quickly; though they sound by no means rushed, this concert is paced so that even the most impatient parent or sibling won't get bored.

The seventh graders are positioned right in front of me, so the sound projects a great deal- this set up allows me to be much closer, when arriving so close to the concert's start time, than I could be in an auditorium. Handel's “Royal Fireworks Music” maintains the majesty of the original baroque version despite the lack of stringed instruments.

The eighth grade concert band, which takes me a moment to locate, begins with the Civil War march “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” Halfway through, its driving rhythms halt, to be replaced by a mournful meander through the melody. Slowly, the drum beat picks back up, and you can picture a troop returning from war.

Their other piece, William Himes' “Creed,” changes tone three or four times. It goes from wistful to cheerful to nostalgic and back again.

The high school jazz band is stationed in the center of the gym, giving younger students ample opportunity to see where they can get one day if they keep practicing. The band's use of dynamic contrasts in Leonard Berstein's “Danzon” and the traditional Irish folk song “Danny Boy,” must be providing a pretty strong motivation to stay in the music program. As director Stephen Massey says, “Encouragement is the best thing.”

They close with Gustav Holst's First Suite in E flat. I have to agree with Mr. Massey; listening to the sound they create, I wish I knew how to play a wind instrument.

Finally, all five bands converge to play a huge, unrehearsed arrangement of “America.” It's enough to make anyone feel patriotic, watching four hundred young Americans perform such an anthem in unison.