Rather than wearing the traditional concert black during the Spring Concert on April 26, the music department wore an array of colors to represent their theme of colors.

Last year, music director Marc Bolden ordered the music for “Blue Shades,” by Frank Ticheli, which is “an advanced college piece” about ten minutes long, according to Bolden. Afterwards, he found other songs that also had different colors in their titles.

Inspired by all the colors, Bolden decided to make the theme of this year’s Spring Concert colors. “I asked the students for their own input, and they loved my idea,” Bolden said.

“I’ve never done a concert that wasn’t standard dress before,” first chair second violin player junior Megan Greig said. “The colors definitely identified that this was a spring concert. My family said they thought it should be like that every year. It was also kind of unifying between the different sections.”

Third chair first violin senior Becca Kotula agreed that the idea was creative, but was worried that the appearance of the members of the Music Department may seem disheveled.

“I think it’s a really fun idea. I like that all the song titles have a color in them, but I think that maybe the dress code for the concert is not strict enough. It could be cool to have each section wearing a different color, but I think we chose too many colors to represent, and some people will be wearing dresses, some wearing pants, etc.,” Kotula said. After the concert, Kotula said, “I think they looked pretty good, it looked better than I thought it would.”

After everyone had agreed on the theme, Bolden made a list of every color in the song titles, so each section could choose its own color to represent.

In chorus, the soprano section was violet, the alto section was gold, the tenor section was orange, and the bass section was red.

In orchestra, the violin one section was pink, the violin two section was orange, the viola section was black, the cello section was white, and the bass section was indigo.

In band, the flute players were violet, the clarinet players were red, the saxophone players were green, the trumpet players were gold, the low brass players were yellow, and the percussion players were blue.

The jazz band performed first and was followed by Director of Enrollment Kim Brueggemann’s Dance for Fitness class, Belle Vocé, band, chorus, orchestra, and full orchestra.

“I am really looking forward to perform with Bella Vocé because we have some really fun songs. I think we have gotten a lot better as well, which is great,” Kotula said.

To close the show, band performed “Blue Shades,” the song that inspired the theme. “I am personally attached to ‘Blue Shades,’ because it sparked the idea and I also played it in college,” Bolden said.

Compared to other years, the Music Department played a “greater caliber music that is much more difficult,” according to Bolden. “I always try to give them advanced songs, but this year I really wanted to challenge them with college-level songs,” he said.

Kotula’s favorite part of the concert was “probably singing ‘True Colors’ at the end.” “It was a really fun song to end with and was a little emotional even, because it was my last song at JC,” she said.

“When we were coming up on the end of ‘True Colors,’ the last song we did, I felt a huge sense of unity with the entire music department. The chorus was swaying, the orchestra was clapping, and Mr. Bolden just looked so proud. I can’t really describe how it felt past saying I knew right then that we were a family,” Greig said.

Sydney Setree is a Managing Editor for the Patriot and jcpatriot.com.