Picnic and pops
Central Park was packed full of people on May 30 as families crowded into the limited amount of shade that surrounded the rows of black chairs in the middle of the grass. A combination of DHS concert band members, symphonic band members, and jazz band members took to the chairs at 5:45.
Clyde Quick took the stage and started the band off with conducting the first songs. The band projected sound across the park, pulling an even larger crowd as the concert progressed.
“The band played well for an outside performance,” senior Rita Allen-Sutter said. Allen-Sutter has played saxophone in the Symphonic band since her junior year, and although this is her last real concert with the bands, said it wasn’t sad.
“In my mind, the senior concert a few weeks ago was my last concert with everyone,” Allen-Sutter said.
Although the concert wasn’t too big of a deal for Allen-Sutter, it was Quick’s last time conducting all the bands in a relaxed setting.
“I’ve really connected with many of the students this year, and it is kind of hard seeing them all go,” Quick said.
Quick won’t be returning as band director next year, even though he is qualified and Fred Lange is retiring. The band program will have a new band director after 26 years of Lange leading the program.
Lange finished up conducting the concert, and in their last piece, did something different. The last movement of The Second Suite in Military F has a melody that rotates between sections, and Lange made the sections that had the melody stand when they had it, which involved two solos: Jenny Horn, and Harrison Allen-Sutter.
The concert ended with a standing ovation by many of the immediate crowd, but some students weren’t as happy with how the concert went.
“In previous years, the band trip had been in April, rather than in May like it was this year, which means it could be in early May, when it is typically much cooler than now. As it was, people were dripping sweat before we even started playing,” junior Avi Steele said.
The evening cooled down though as the performance progressed, bringing the band into the shade provided by the trees. This was the last combined band performance before they will appear again after school lets out, at Graduation on June 8.
