Schreiber Auditorium was alive with the sound of music, but not just any kind of music: band music.
Tuesday, Oct. 28 was the Pioneer High School bands’ first official concert of the year. While the band has been playing for every home game of the Pioneer football season, this was their first concert performance.
To show their Halloween spirit and creativity, the four Pioneer bands took the stage wearing section costumes. Each instrument section was tasked with a group costume. From Spongebob to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, there were a wide variety of costumes throughout the bands. The jazz band took the stage first performing three songs, followed by concert white, purple and finally symphony band.
For freshman Patrick Lochen, this was his first time playing in Schreiber Auditorium as a member of the Pioneer bands. While Lochen, who plays euphonium, felt nervous for his first concert, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t excited to be playing.
“It is definitely a lot more pressure than in middle school, but it is really enjoyable and the pieces the band is playing are really cool,” Lochen said.
However, for some seniors, it was hitting them that this was their final All-Hallows concert with Pioneer.
“It is sad to me that I know so many great musicians in the band, and I’m not going to be able to interact with them from now on,” Clara Paulson, a senior in the French horn section said. “There’s such amazing musical growth that I think I’ve seen in Symphony Band in so many sections.”
This All-Hallows concert was different from other concerts because the symphony band got a guest composer. Chris Evan Hass, a Pioneer alum and a good friend of the band director, got a chance to come back and perform his piece “Teal Fusion”.
Evan Hass didn’t think that he would end up going into a career of composing but he fell in love with the community and sound of the band.
“I always loved music, but I wasn’t good at band, but I stuck with it because my mom suggested it might be a good fit,” Evan Hass said. “Then immediately I got to the school and fell in love with what bands could accomplish even beginning at band camp.”
Evan Hass started composing in high school, and because of the blast he had in high school, he decided to make music his life.
“I’m just chasing that high of what it was like being in this community,” Evan Hass said. “We all have the same common goal of wanting to make music and you have 70 people all with that same common goal; uniting people in a good way.”
His song “Teal Fusion” was based on a mix of jazz fusion. Evan Hass honed in on jazz fusion influence composition and it gave him a chance to analyze a lot of his favorite songs. He looked at the 70s/80s music and Japanese jazz fusion and took some of those ideas into his own voice.
For Evan Hass, it was so special to see the Pioneer symphony band performing his own piece and being back with the bands.
“It is amazing to come back and see that sense of community within the band. I have so many lifelong connections and friends from the band,” Evan Hass said. “It is also just the silliness, the wackiness and the hijinks of it all. But it is truly amazing to see a bunch of high school goofballs and band geeks come together and accomplish truly great things.”
