Band and Orchestra Foundation concert held Sunday, February 13, 2011 By Nina Hoyle Dr Morrison, the clinician for the band. (photo of Dr. Emile unavailable) - Advertising     After working for nearly 12 hours over two days with Dr. Nicholas Morrison, and Dr. Mark Emile, the BEHS band and orchestra put on their Box Elder School District Foundation Concert on February 9 at 7 in the evening.     After the nine minute speech on what The Foundation is, the combined orchestras of Box Elder and Bear River opened with their first number. They played three numbers, all of them being excerpts from larger works.      The first piece was Mozart's 41st symphony, nicknamed the “Jupiter Symphony.” Next was the fourth movement of a Sonata composed by Franck. Then the finale was the first and fourth movements from Holst’s “St. Paul’s Suite for String Orchestra.”     After a short change of set, the combined bands took the stage under the direction of Dr. Morrison for five numbers. They opened with Prairiescape, a piece by Sheldon Renoylds, which “paints a musical portrait of the Canadian prairie.” Salvation is Created was next on the program which Dr Morrison said was a Russian Orthodox hymn written about the time of the Russian revolution.      “When all there was (to eat) was old crusty bread and weak tea...”  Next up was what seemed to be the majority favorite. Crystals by Thomas Duffy is a contemporary piece described very bluntly to be “weird” The highlight of this piece was the odd instruments some members of the band got to play. The saxophones got to play crystal goblets, filled with water to tune them to certain notes, which gave off an ethereal sound and the percussion got to play such oddities as the “water gong” which was a normal gong which was played while being dipped in a container full water which changes the pitch tremendously.       First Suite for Band was written by Gustav Holst nearly 100 years ago, but wasn’t performed for  almost 11 years after being written. The band played the first movement, then went on to the last piece of the night. Black Horse Troop was written by John Phillips Sousa, the “march king.” The bouncy 6/8 time and fun melodies made it another audience favorite.

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