Halloween Concert!

This past week the symphony orchestra here at BYU-Idaho performed the 25th Annual Halloween Concert. My friend, Jaren (from Albany, New York), invited me to go with him when he found out that I played the cello. He plays the violin. Anyway, so we went on Thursday night. The theme was pirates so, naturally, I LOVED IT! The set was all decorated with gold, skeletons, and other pirate things. I told Jaren that I felt like I was at Disneyland because of all the things they had on stage. They had a big projector that was showing all the different "pirate lingo" and what each of the words meant. It was so neat! The entire orchestra (including the director), the men's chorus, and the other performers all dressed up as pirates. They had bandanas, ridiculous make-up, shackles on their feet, ripped clothes...the works! It was so neat! Since the honor code here doesn't allow people to have excessive piercings and all tatoos have to be covered, none of the pirates had any of those. :] One guy, however, had a fake earring. When they were talking about why these pirates were different from other pirates because the captain requires them to follow the dress and grooming standards, the guy ripped the fake earring out of his ear and threw it on the stage floor. Before the concert, they had a guy dressed like a pirate come out and, in his best pirate voice, tell all us "mateys" that "thar be no electronic devices bein' used on the ship." If we did, we'd "be thrown off the plank!" There was a girl that narrated the concert and she read a story about this evil orchestra director, Captain Hook, who enslaved pirates on his ship and made them practice long hours and forced them to perform difficult pieces. The story was really funny. Captain Hook's assistant, Mr. Smee, then came on stage and helped him get ready for the performance by unscrewing his hook and replacing it with a baton. Captain Hook then directed his pirate orchestra as they played "Pirates of the Caribbean." They were almost as good as my high school orchestra was! Haha. The orchestra here has a lot more horns then my school ever had, so it was really cool to hear all the horn parts. They did something really neat while they were playing, too. They had a wheel on stage in front of the director and every now and then, he would turn the wheel like he was steering the ship and the orchestra would lean--while they were playing--depending on which way he turned it. It made it look like they were rocking the ship. It was so neat! Throughout the concert, the director would always threaten the trombones saying that he would throw them off the plank if they couldn't get their act together. After each piece, they would do a little act that only lasted for a couple minutes. They were trying to be so careful not to say the "T word," but of course, it always slipped, so whenever someone would say, "treasure," the men's chorus would come out and fight each other with their swords and they would perform a song. There was one piece called, "Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes" that I'd never heard. It was really neat how they did the lighting to help present the mood of each of the movements. The orchestra here is pretty good I must say. It was such a fun concert! I had a blast! I'm so glad that I got to go!