By: Hayley Strahs and Annabelle Pan

Local and Graphics Editors

Over the past three weeks, the LGHS Band Program, Jazz Program, and Orchestra Program all held their first official concerts of the school year.

LGHS kicked off its concert series with the Oct. 3 Jazz Band concert in the LGHS Theater. Before the whole Jazz Band took the stage, the LGHS Tri-M Jazz Combo, featuring students across all grades, performed its short, yet mighty set. Classic jazz songs like Misty, Girl from Ipanema, Blue Monk, and Have You Met Miss Jones comprised the group’s set. Sophomore Adrián Vieyra plays the saxophone in the Tri-M Jazz Combo and performed solos in all of its songs. “I kind of wanted to pick my own stuff and do more improv,” Vieyra explained. We haven’t [done] improv in jazz yet, officially.” After the Tri-M Jazz Combo, the entire Jazz Band played songs across various styles, from the popular (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman, to the inventive Brass Machine, composed by Mark Taylor. Each song featured solos from numerous jazz band students, including junior vocalist Evie Ishak who is enrolled in both Jazz Band and Women’s Choir.

Oct. 10 marks the first orchestra concert of the 2024-25 school year, led by the orchestra director Armeen Ghafourpour. String orchestra, the open enrollment orchestra, started off the night with Symphony Concertante by Joseph Bologne and finished with Jorge Vargas’s La Bruja, a piece that spotlights every section. Freshman Ari Kho, a cellist in String, said his favorite piece is the “Concertante because it’s fast and fun to play.” Up next was the Philharmonic Orchestra, the middle-level audition group, who played three pieces, including a beautiful, melodic piece called Pavane by Gabriel Faure. Sophomore Nolan Lin is the violin concertmaster of Philharmonic; of the piece, Lin said, “I like Pavane the most because it sounds nice and reminds me of my friend.” Chamber Orchestra began their energetic performance with Waltz, a piece composed by Aram Khachaturian. After playing the melodic Reverie by Claude Debussy, Chamber ended the night with Prelude and Fiesta by Eric Morales and surprised the audience with coordinated stomps to accent the notes.

On Oct. 15, the McAfee Center hosted all three LGHS Concert Bands. The Symphonic Band kicked off the concert with composer Yo Goto’s Lighthearted March, which featured both high and low brass sections. After playing Robert Sheldon’s Gently I Wander, the band performed Roshanne Etezady’s action-packed Jumpscare Tango. Freshman clarinet soloist Ben Holland described the piece as “[sections of the band] passing a part back and forth,” similar to the motions of a tango dance. Next, the all-upperclassmen Crescent Ensemble took the stage. Members performed three songs, including the triumphant One Final Mission, heavily featuring brass and woodwind instruments. Finally, Wind Ensemble, the most advanced band, performed their four-song set and resoundingly concluded the concert with Harrison J. Collins’s spirited Fanfare for Wild Youthful Occasions.