MHS Production Celebrates Creativity, Diversity

Mamaroneck High School's Performing Arts Curriculum Experience (PACE) program put on its 6^th annual Soundscapes music show this weekend. Many of the high school's top musicians performed a wide variety of compositions spanning many different genres and styles on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The show, which featured members of the school's advanced music class as performers, directors and composers, included everything from classical piano and harp compositions to hip-hop.  Likewise, the show's tagline, featured on the program, described the event as "a musical production celebrating creativity and diversity."

The show opened with "The Arrival of Sven (Part II)", a mixed swing/DJ-electronic piece composed by seniors Will Jacobs, Sam Karson and Robbie Roth that provided an early introduction to the musical variety of the whole show. 

For the remainder of the first act, styles shifted abruptly from piece to piece, going from a piano instrumental to R&B to a chamber ensemble, before ending with "Déjà Vu," an extended theatrical chanson performance set in a Parisian street café.

Among the first act's highlights were, in addition to "Sven" and "Déjà Vu," Claude Debussy's "Deux Arabiques," performed by sophomores Caroline Carney and Natalia Shevin on piano and harp, respectively; and "Stepping to the Beat of Our Own Drum," a percussion dance piece composed by seniors Naaji Adzimah and Rachel Rabinowitz.

The second act continued much in the vein of the first, opening with senior Eliot Cohen's "Why Do You Have To Be So Scientific?" montage.  Junior Melanie Gabel played the part of the secretary of a fictional scientific academy that, due to budgetary issues, merged its science and arts programs.

Other highlights of the second half included an excellent performance of Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" by senior Brendan Gaffney on piano; Natalia Shevin's performance of Mikhail Mtchedelov's "Alenushka" on harp; and "Steinberg Smash," a rock piece composed by senior bass and guitar virtuosos Jordan and Talor Steinberg with their drummer, junior Sam Goodspeed.

Ultimately, the show did have to come to an end, and it did with a performance of a Bob Marley medley featuring "One Love" and "Three Little Birds," wonderfully arranged and performed by the entire advanced music class.

William Derby, PACE's music teacher and director, commented after the performance on the program's evolution over the past few years.  Since its inception in 2005, Derby noted that he "think[s] it has gotten better a little bit every year," noting that the increased volume of students results in "more material, more diversity, more genres," as well as an increase in the "sheer number of pieces."