Winter Concert 2017 Gives Performers and Audience a Big Surprise
Mr. Casement conducts the String Orchestra during the Winter Concert.
December 19, 2017
The annual winter concert took place Thursday, December 14, in the Paint Branch High School auditorium with performances starting at 7 pm. This year’s performances came from concert band, concert chorus, jazz ensemble, the jazz singers, symphonic band, string orchestra, and the full ensemble. These performances included featured solos by Andrew Kear in the concert chorus, Prince Alayode and Vilma Ortiz in the jazz singers, and MaryGrace Ruebens in the women’s jazz singers ensemble.
Mrs. Chris Mitchell, PB’s choral music director for the past 28 years, had her performers in good form as they sang and danced to a variety of different songs. Regarding the evening’s performances, Mrs. Mitchell stated, “I thought all the groups did excellent jobs and I thought that there was a decent size appreciative audience.”
Mrs. Mitchell added that the night was also about more than music, noting, “We also collected a good number of canned goods for the Maryland Food Bank.”
This concert was also the first for new instrumental music conductor Mr. Gregory Casement, who relished the opportunity to show off the progress he has made with his musicians in just a few short months.
Mr. Casement stated the day after the concert, “Since we started in September there are many skills we have developed and some we still need to work on, but let’s take this performance as something to learn from and forget about it even though we finished successfully.”
The ensembles played some very popular and well known songs including “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” and, as tradition demands, “Sleigh Ride” to end the show.
For the final performance of“Sleigh Ride,” alumni-musicians joined current musicians on-stage, with some even bringing Christmas hats to wear while playing. What everyone didn’t expect was former instrumental music teacher, and PB-alum Mr. Kirchhoff to climb onto the stage and conduct the final show. Mr. K, who led the instrumental music program at PB for ten years, was the biggest surprise in what was a magical evening of music.
