There will be plenty of music for all ages at the annual Golden Strings concert Friday and Saturday nights, and some of the music will probably take folks on a trip down Memory Lane.
The Shawano Community High School orchestra will take the stage at the school auditorium and start with songs from the 1950s and continue to the present day, following the theme of “Through the Decades.” Besides the group performances, there will be orchestral and choral solos peppered throughout the concert.
One of the soloists is Landan Holtz, a SCHS senior. He will be playing and singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which is best known for being a song in “The Wizard of Oz,” which came out in 1939. However, he is performing a 1997 cover version of the song.
“It was actually the first song I ever learned,” Holtz said. “This one is just in a different key to learn.”
Addison Lewis, another senior, will also be singing in the show, even though he is not a member of the orchestra. Performing “California Dreamin’,” Lewis said the orchestra was very selective in who would perform solos, not only for musical talent but in terms of grades, too.
“It’s definitely special in many ways. It’s an honor,” Lewis said. “This was a song I had to learn, because I’d never heard it before. I’d heard of the Mamas and Papas, the band that did it. It’s definitely a song from the counterculture era.”
The Golden Strings concert is unique in that the show is completely organized by students. Although director Jill Sousek will guide the players through much of the show, the students picked out the songs, the theme, lighting, sound and everything else.
“The first thing we had to do was come up with a theme that could work with the lights and sound (at the SCHS auditorium),” said Chloe Knope, the chair for the concert’s stage committee. “We chose a lot of decorations from the 1900s; like for the ’60s we came up with lava lamps.”
Simon Moesch, a student director, noted the students even developed the advertising and the programs for the show.
The show will finish with “Counting Stars,” performed by One Republic, according to Moesch. He said there will be something for everyone.
“We’ve got swing music, rock, pop — we pretty much cover it all,” Moesch said.
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