Tis the Season for Spring Concerts

The Pottsgrove Middle School Orchestra during the Holiday concert, director Will Einhorn.

Like the flowers, the April showers and tree pollen, spring brings many things.

And one of the more enjoyable of them are school district spring concerts.

With a son in the band and jazz band at Pottstown High School, I attended the spring concert on Tuesday, April 29.

But before we get to videos from that performance, a note from Will Einhorn, director of the

The Pottsgrove Middle School Orchestra performed at the
Coventry Mall over the holidays.

orchestra at Pottsgrove Middle School:

I would like to cordially invite you to The Pottsgrove Middle School Orchestra's Spring Concert next Wednesday May 7th. 

This concert will be taking place at 7:30 p.m/ in the PGMS Auditorium.

Our concert will feature a wide variety of classical, show tunes, and pop music. 

Some of those selections include "Over the Rainbow" from Wizard of Oz, and "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay. 

This year the orchestra is at 70 members which is the largest group we have had in many years and next year we are projecting 80-85 members. 

This is not possible without your continuous support of the music program. The students and I thank you for this and all that you do and would love to see you there if possible.

Indeed, the music program in the Pottsgrove School District is growing by leaps and bounds -- so much so that one of the major aspects of the $28 million high school renovation is to expand space for music programs.

And if you would like to hear how they sound, here is a video of their performance of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, presumably from the Holiday Concert in December.




As for Pottstown's concert, I was happy to be able to enjoy some of the Concert Choir and Show Choir performances, which I don't often get to see.

Here is a segment of the Concert Choir singing "Abraham, Martin and John."



And here is their final number, "Shenandoah," a personal favorite of mine.



In the intervening time, the Flute and Clarinet ensembles played, but without their beloved director, Nancy Mest, who broke her arm and is recovering from surgery, so I sent her a shout-out.:




The concert band played something unusual, a Native American-inspired piece named "Songs of Earth, Water, Fire and Sky," which featured Pottstown School Board member Ron Williams, who is part Apache, in Native American dress reading a creation myth narrative while the band played.

Here is how it began:



Then the Concert Band fulfilled a long-expressed wish of Public Relations Coordinator John Armato, by playing a medley of Blues Brothers tunes. (But John missed the performance. Lucky for him, it is one of the few performances I recorded in its entirety. You're welcome John.)




The Show Choir, which dances (who knew?), then did an old Jackson 5 number:




Which was followed by a surprise performance by James Rodgers, Nicholas Parsons, Randy Mercado and Dylan Mauger, the male members of the Show Choir, who sang "Just My Imagination."




Finally, my old favorite, the Pottstown Jazz Band took the spotlight and debuted a new song, "Zoot Suit Riot," which I have posted in full here, given that it is a new number.