By Kevin Spradlin
PeeDeePost.com
* Photo gallery – more than 200 images
* Video – Raider Percussion Trio
HAMLET — The annual Spring Concert staged Tuesday night included a special emphasis on the seniors.
Raider Concert Band Director Mike Ward recognized the 13 seniors in the flute, clarinet, saxophone, trump, horn and percussion sections by name. Then John Tyson, director of the Raider Show Choir, allowed the senior singers to perform Steve Winwood’s 1986 classic “Bring Me a Higher Love.”
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Clarinetist Angela Chen moved to the other side of the stage for her debut solo on the piano.
Tyson said he “stepped out of the way” to allow the six graduating seniors — Ahyana Cox, Zykie Lockhart, McKenzie Grimes, ADaysa Hartwell, Dadriene Davis and Juwan Lockhart — to compose their own version, which included the full Raider Show Choir at the end along with crowd participation inside the Robert L. and Elizabeth S. Cole Auditorium and Community Center on the campus of Richmond Community College in Hamlet.
The chorus opened in complete darkness with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” arranged by Roger Emerson, and chorus members left their seats as part of the audience to the stage by candlelight.
“The Boy Who Picked Up His Feet to Fly,” by Joshua Shank, was the fourth of six numbers of the Raider Show Choir. Tyson said it was a “weird and strange (song) for a chorus to sing.”
The 90-minute program included 14 performances, plus the bonus track from the choral senior singers.
The band led off with “Pink Lemonade,” a military marching number, followed by “Song of Hope,” written by Jack Stamp, who served as Ward’s collegiate band director. The number, Ward said, was written in memory of the 20 students and six adults who were shot and killed inside Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012 in Newtown, Conn.
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Angelis Hernandez, one of the band’s 13 outgoing seniors, led the Raider Percussion Trio in a performance — a high-energy crowd favorite — before clarinetist Angela Chen moved to the other side of the stage for her debut solo on the piano in “The Seal Lullaby.”
That number, Ward explained, was originally written by Eric Whitacre for a planned animated film on seals. Production experts instead opted to produce Kung Fu Panda 2, Ward said, but Whitacre finished the piece for band performances.
The band ended with “The Great Locomotive Chase,” which Ward explained was a number inspired by a military raid in April 1862 b Union volunteers who stole a train to damage a key rail line in Georgia and Tennessee.
Kevin Spradlin | PeeDeePost.com
Ward had each of his seniors — Megan Mills, Caleb Ricks, Keeman Davis, Lakeyia Douglas, Jarod Ricks, Kayla Baldwin, Heather Bellamy, Candice Liles, Richard Watts, Makayla Bacon, Tatyana Dobson, Angelis Hernandez and Sarah Maske — stand for a special round of applause for the efforts over the past four years.
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