By Lauren Shin, Staff Writer
Each year during the fall, the River Hill Music Department holds a prism concert in the school auditorium. Just as prisms break light into its component colors, a prism concert separates different music ensembles into its smaller groups to display various aspects of music.
This year, the concert was held on Saturday, November 4th. The overarching theme was representing women in music- more specifically, recognizing women composers. Each of the River Hill music groups performed a piece by various composers.
Junior Olivia Shim, a clarinet player in the River Hill Wind Ensemble, shared her anticipation before the concert, stating that she was “excited because this year’s musical selection is much better than last year’s. I like how the rhythms are fun, especially for the clarinet part.”
The Wind Ensemble performed Fuzion by Carol Brittin Chambers, a very adventurous composition for wind and percussion instruments, full of diverse rhythms. Meanwhile, Marching Band took an interactive approach to perform Toxic by Britney Spears down in the audience aisles.
River Hill Orchestra also performed selections from contemporary women composers. The Advanced String Orchestra played “Starburst” by Jessie Montgomery, a uniquely modern arrangement displaying the vibrant aspects of each instrument in the string family through colorful rhythms and dissonance in chords. Senior Ella Jiao, a violinist, commented that she “didn’t particularly like Starburst at first because it’s not melodious like other traditional pieces, but I sort of like it now. It’s very fun to play and everything sort of fell into place and made sense after a while.”
River Hill Guitar represented three female artists, including Adele and SnailMail by playing Rolling in the Deep, La Bamba, and Thinning, respectively.
Senior Guitarist Bennett Vitek has been a part of the River Hill Prism Concert for 3 years now and shared that “this one was the most memorable because not only is it the last prism concert I’ll ever perform at, but it’s also been fun learning unconventional pieces by under-recognized women composers.” He describes Thinning as a very moody and emotional piece. “The guitar distortion also makes it very powerful but the lyrics themselves make it very sorrowful at the same time,’ he says.
Overall, this year’s successful Prism concert was able to touch on the hearts of the audience and empower women in the music industry through the River Hill Music Department’s various performances.