This year’s annual Spring Music Night concert, featuring performances by this semester’s music classes and extracurricular music groups was held on 14 May, 2015 in the cafeteria. The show started at 6:30pm, and ended at around 8:30. Tickets to the event were sold by music students beforehand. Attendees could also buy their tickets at the door for $3.00 a person, or $5.00 for two.
The concert started off with a performance by the Grade 11 Guitar class, playing a selection of five musical pieces that included “Easy Blues”, and “Hotel California”. After that the Administration/Teacher band played, followed by the Grade 9 Vocal and Morning Band classes. The first act ended with an awards ceremony to present this year’s Music Awards, which were given to outstanding music students in the Band, Guitar, and Vocal classes.
After a 10-minute intermission, the second half of the show began with a performance by Teacher/Admin Band (not to be confused with Admin/Teacher band), who played “Lost Together”. The Grade 9 Afternoon class performed next, followed by the choir, the combined vocal class, the concert band, the stage band, and the Grade 10/11/12 vocal class. The show ended with an enthusiastic performance of “Happy” from Despicable Me 2 by a combined group that consisted of all of the vocal classes.
Preparation for the event began two months before the event. Aside from the performers, Stage Crew, Music Council, and the video crew worked hard to ensure the performance flowed smoothly.
A snack table operated by students was also present to sell refreshments to audience members.
Music Night is organized biannually by Marc Garneau C.I.’s Music Department. The teachers involved are Miss Libunao and Mr. Rakonjac. It is intended as a fun and educational experience that helps students meet their class and curriculum expectations and showcases their work for the past three months. Mr. Rakonjac, who teaches band and guitar, said “I hope that people will come to appreciate and show more enthusiasm for Music Night by discovering what we do, what we sound like and how hard we work, and the only way to do so is to come and hear, see and feel the show live. It’s a primarily a formal concert, but also a fun concert. It has also elements of informality and formality, and it’s a Musical way to integrate the school socially, a type of catalyst for cultural integration. I believe that this school needs to come together and Music Night is one way to do so.”
Music Night was well received by the audience, who clapped and cheered after each and every one of the performances. One audience member commented it was a “riveting performance” and “very great”.
The performers and organizers of Music Night were also satisfied with the show. “I think the concert went fairly well overall, we had a decent show-up, and performed decently.” said Khari Thomas, the president of Concert Band.
Srinidhi Potukuchi, a Grade 9 performer, said that “I think I was really good, there were many people … I liked the Grade 9 Band, when they did the Superman Theme Song”, but commented that “we could have it advertised more and raise more awareness for it.”
As for improvements next year, Mr. Rakonjac said that “I would probably include a little bit about Music Advocacy highlighting the importance and benefits of a formal Music Education through a short video by the Coalition for Music Education, and I’d like to have a little better communication with Music Council and Stage Crew to make it a little neater, make it move a little faster, and promote the concert a little more. Music Council did overall a very good job in helping to organize the concert”. He also commented that “We got a lot of positive comments and many said that it was one of the best Music Nights to date – everything went really well.”
Music Night is held twice a year at Garneau. The next one will take place in December of the 2015-2016 academic year.
