JHS Music Department sets the slate for upcoming performances

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Like those nationally famous groups, units from the award winning Johnston High School Music Department are in high demand.

Beginning tonight, and continuing through the always colorful Commencement that’s scheduled for Friday evening, June 8, the school’s band, select choir and concert chorus will perform at a number of different venues but including the JHS auditorium.

All members of the aforementioned groups have been busy fine-tuning their respective numbers that will be featured in tonight’s 2nd Annual Collage Concert.

Before any musical is played though, JHS Music Department Chairman Ronald Lamoureux wants to make sure people who are planning to attend the event are aware of a time change. It was previously announced that doors would open at 6 o’clock and that still holds true.

However, as Lamoureux said earlier this week, “The concert will begin at 6:30 and not at 7 o’clock.”

“The collage theme is one that we feel will become a favorite of our audiences,” Lamoureux said. “It features such a wide variety of performing collaborations and types of music. We work really hard to keep the flow of the show going with seamless transitions between performing groups.”

While he announced that tonight’s “Collage Concert” will include about 20 performances throughout the night and that there will be a big variety of music in no particular order, the band will close out the evening with “Our Heritage March” by Karl King and a medley from “West Side Story”, arranged by Jay Bocook.

“I am really looking forward to the medley,” Lamoureux said. “The band is working hard to execute all the details we can. It’s an exciting and moving program.”

For example, tunes in the medley will include “Maria”; “Tonight”: “One Hand, One Heart,” “Cool,” and “Somewhere”.

There will also be a piano solo by Luca Correia entitled “Fur Elise,” Beethoven and Rock Band doing “Gary Come Home” from Sponge Bob Square Pants and students Tyler McMahon, Josh Jukes and Jack Frenier doing “The House of the Rising Sun” made famous years ago by The Animals.

Ashlee Costa and Megan Langford are also listed a special performers while the Select Choir and Concert Chorus will treat the audience to numbers featuring what Director Matt Gingras calls “their fantastic voices.”

Lamoureux also announced that the Jazz Band will perform Horace Silver’s “Song for my Father”.

The JHS Music Chair also wanted it known that tonight’s “Collage Concert” will include “a special and important collection taken in the foyer in memory of our friend Rachel Elizabeth Carson that will be donated to the Audubon Society in her name and memory.”

Carson, who was a popular member of the JHS Music Department, passed away on January 14 of this year after succumbing to a battle with leukemia.

Both the JHS band and choruses are fresh from what people called “excellent performances” at the Rhode Island Music Education Association Band and Choral Festivals and have been invited to march in Monday’s North Providence Memorial Day Parade. The band will also provide music at the June 8 JHS graduation at the Providence Performing Arts Center and some members of the department will be on hand for Monday’s Memorial Day Service inside Johnston War Memorial Park.

Wednesday, June 6, Lamoureux announced earlier this week, will hold its Tri-M Music Honor Society Induction ceremony in the JHS Auditorium.

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