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By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Westwood Public Schools’ Performing Arts department always manages to impress the community. From the elementary string concert to the middle school band concert to the high school musical, the town has made it clear that its students are bursting with talent.
Westwood High School once again seized the opportunity to show the community the students’ musical talent with the annual Spring Pops Concert, where each performance was received with a standing ovation.
The wind ensemble kicked off the evening with the performance of the finale from “The New World Symphony,” which showcased several students’ abilities to play more than one instrument. They also performed a fantastic and upbeat Carnival song, “Brazil: Ceremony, Song and Samba.”
Passing Notes, Westwood High’s a cappella group, took the audience back to the 1980’s with Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come on Eileen” and the B-52’s “Love Shack.” The students brought incredible enthusiasm to the latter song, with one of the vocalists even playing the air guitar, energizing the audience.
Next, the concert band gave an impressive instrumental version of Walk the Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance,” followed by music from “Beauty and the Beast.” Keeping with the contemporary theme of their performance, the concert band flawlessly performed highlights from “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.”
The jazz band, which features a remarkable variety of instruments, played “Boogie Stop Shuffle,” “Sing Sang Sung,” and “Soul Vaccination,” which exhibited the talent from several students during their solos.
The string orchestra, which is comprised of 11 musicians, followed suit in delivering an excellent performance. They played “Allegro from Sinfonia No. 6 in G minor” and “Air from Suite No. 3 in D major.” While the audience enjoyed the classical performance, they were particularly impressed by the students’ instrumental version of Coldplay’s “Clocks.”
Westwood High’s chorus joined on stage for the seniors’ song: Imagine Dragons’ “On Top of the World,” which was accompanied by a small band. They finished the show with a medley from the Broadway musical, “Mamma Mia,” featuring a dozen of the chorus’s talented singers.
With each group performing just as well as the one before it, Westwood High’s Spring Pops Concert was a hit.
