Guest article by: Lou Bonagura
WAKEFIELD -- The Wakefield-Marenisco music department presented its annual Spring Concert. Pre-Kindergarten through fourth grade students took turns on the stage, providing the audience with vocal favorites. Following the younger entertainers, the fifth grade band took center stage for their performance. The sixth graders also performed and to everyone’s delight, there were more sixth grade students in the band than years past. Fifth grade band is mandatory; sixth grade band is an elective. Consequently, the band program sees a significant drop in participation between grades five and six.
The evening began with the littlest stars, preschoolers, prep-kindergarten and kindergarten students singing “I’m In the Mood” and “ABC Blues”. The first graders were next to perform and they sang “Let the Music Begin” and “Shine, Shine, Shine” which featured solos by Alyssa LaMalde and Julia Tarro.
The second graders took the stage alongside the first graders and jointly sang “Soap and Water”.
The second grade students then had their opportunity to shine, and they did. They sang “The Music in Me,” a number that featured dancers Clay Cossman, Cloe Bachnd, Ethan Liebertoski and Addison Mattson. Their performance included a second song, “Love the Summer”.
Third grade students then performed “Let’s Get the Rhythm of the Band”. They performed another song, “Rockin”Cardinal”. If you haven’t guessed, this is the 1958 Bobby Day song, “Rockin’ Robin” with a minor change in lyrics.
It was interesting to me that the elementary school, performing Thursday evening, were all 21st century kids, and yet they had as much fun singing the '50s and '60s tunes as we did when we were their age...and they said rock would never last.
The fourth grade students continued the classic rock theme when they performed for the sellout crowd. The youngsters sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and “At the Hop”. Do you suppose that we saw future Lowell Street Band Members Thursday night? Let’s hope so.
The vocal portion of the show ended with the third grade and fourth grade students singing “I Can’t Wait”. The song accompanied a power point show featuring photos of the kids and a description of each child’s ambitions for when they grow up.
The band section of the evening began with the fifth grade band who performed three songs for the audience. They led off with the song “We Will Rock You”. The band then played the theme from Brahms “Symphony No. 1”. That song featured a trumpet solo by Andrew Keller. The final song of their performance was “Tyrannosaurus Rocks”. The sixth grade band played “Tribal Voices”. That song featured soloist Hayley Jardeen. The second and final song for the band was “The Brass in the Basement”.
The Junior-Senior High School Band was the last to perform. As they say, “Last, but not least!”
The elder W-M musicians continued to rock the gymnasium. They began by playing my theme song, “Louie, Louie,” followed by “Uptown Girl”. The band then played “After burn”. The last song of the evening continued to include Mrs Genisot’s choreography, as the band played “Soul Man”. Do you suppose that there is an LSB Connection?
This was the conclusion of Music Director Sandra Genisot’s first year at Wakefield-Marenisco. I’m sure that everyone was both surprised and overjoyed at the progress the music program has made in such a short time. We expected a great night of music in that earlier this spring, we witnessed the W-M musicians performing at the Solo & Ensemble Competition. They performed very well at that time.
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Guest article written by Lou Bonagura of IronwoodInfo.com
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