Redwood Middle School Band's winter concert entertaining
Concert review
By Cary Ginell soundthink@aol.com

Redwood Middle School presented its annual winter concert last month at the Performing Arts Center of Thousand Oaks High School, and, like its high school counterparts, four musical groups put on an entertaining evening of performances.

A middle school band program can be compared to minor league baseball in that the musicians are in training for the more difficult work they'll face when they get to high school. Redwood's vaunted band program is helmed by Adam Payne, who instructs fresh-faced musicians not only how to master their instruments but also how to play within a group for the first time. Some students begin their training in elementary school, but most are still feeling their way around their instruments when they enter the sixth grade. At Redwood, all of a sudden they are required to master a variety of skills at one time: playing the right notes with the right intonation, playing in rhythm, using proper dynamics- all while listening to what their neighbors and the rest of the band are playing and keeping an eye on the conductor for visual instructions. It's a lot to keep track of, but the paces Payne puts his young charges through do well to prepare them for high school.

Most of the Beginning Band's pieces are short and played in unison. Familiar songs abound, such as "Hot Cross Buns," which takes less than a minute to play. Payne, however, introduces polytonal songs early in the year, and the band also played the holiday songs "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" and "Winter Wonderland."

"Crusader's March" teaches the group the march rhythms that they will need when participating in the Conejo Valley Days parade. At the close of their portion of the program, the students in the Beginning Band received a thunderous ovation from the partisan audience of mostly parents and siblings. Many of the band members, performing in public for the first time, had startled looks on their faces upon hearing the audience's reaction.

Next to perform was the newly minted Chamber Orchestra, an all-string ensemble revived thanks to the leadership of Redwood principal Lou Lichtl and band director Payne. Whereas the Beginning Band members were dressed in their spiffy redandblack marching uniforms, the orchestra personnel wore black, with the boys sporting bright red neckties and the girls donning Santa hats. Director Anna Sobrino is a forceful but expressive leader, utilizing a clear beat and broad conducting style. Sobrino chose an eclectic array of tunes, including Gliere's "Russian Sailor's Dance" and "Westminster Prelude and Fugue," the latter composed in 1793 by an 11-year-old child prodigy and based on a theme from Handel's "Messiah." For their finale, the orchestra played David Shaffer's "Ho Ho Hoedown," with surprise guest soloist Principal Lichtl, who provided square dance calls from the wings.

The great thing about these concerts is that one can readily see the improvement in technique as they progress from group to group. The Concert Band, the next level up, included two relatively recent holiday standards, "Little Drummer Boy" and "Sleigh Ride." (Both were written within the past 60 years.)

The last group to play was the Symphonic Band, which began its set with a vibrant arrangement of the "Carol of the Bells," renamed "African Bell Carol," with a frontline of five excellent percussionists. Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" was given a leisurely and refreshingly marchable treatment in an arrangement by Zane Van Auken. The band then closed out the program with "A Hanukkah Festival" and Johnnie Vinson's "A Swingin' Christmas."

Adam Payne is always proud to talk about the varied instrumentation of his bands, and this year's groups included a well-defined low end, thanks to a surplus of bassoons, euphoniums, trombones and tubas. This combined with the usual array of flutes, clarinets and trumpets to result in a well-balanced, enjoyable and festive evening of holiday music for one and all.