By Crystal Wang '25
Photo Courtesy of Crystal Wang '25
On Friday October 29th, the William and Mary Symphony Orchestra performed a Halloween concert at the Commonwealth Auditorium in Sadler. The concert started at 8pm, and general admission tickets were $10 while student tickets were only $3.
Having arrived a few minutes late, I found the auditorium completely packed with students and the general public alike. To avoid disturbing the performance, audience members who arrived late (including myself) stood respectfully by the door, waiting for the orchestra to finish their first piece, The Academic Festival Overture Op. 80 by Johannes Brahms. It was jaunty yet had many moments that portrayed the terrifying excitement of being in college as well as having the rest of your life laid out in front of you. You could feel the tension in the air as the conductor froze his hands and the orchestra finished the last note only for that tension to break and the audience to burst into applause.
After the first piece, the conductor, David Grandis, made his introductory speech and the last few rows were filled by those who arrived late. The speech Grandis gave was rather standard, introducing the orchestra and himself, thanking the people who came, telling us a little about the piece they had just played. Additionally, most of the information about the piece could be found on the pamphlet available at the ticket desk downstairs.
The pamphlet covered quite a lot of information including all the members of the orchestra and executive board, information about the director, and all the background one would need to know about the pieces being played that night.
The second piece, The Moldau composed by Bedrich Smetana, started as everyone settled into their seats. I could feel my enthusiasm lessen as the song went on. The piece was played beautifully, so the restlessness I felt and saw around me had nothing to do with the ability of the musicians but rather the length of the piece and the timing itself. The Moldau was a little over ten minutes long, similar to The Academic Festival Overture Op. 80, however, it didn’t have the advantage of being the first piece of the concert. Although not rapt with attention, I still found the performance to be very entertaining, as did the rest of the audience if the applause afterwards was anything to go by. The clapping wasn’t as loud as the first piece but definitely louder than simply polite applause.
Then an intermission was introduced as the concert shifted attention away from music and towards the other focuses of the night: a costume contest and raffle. Interestingly, of the three prizes consisting of various gifts from the local businesses around Williamsburg, two of them were won by the same woman. Since the winners were announced via a series of identifying numbers rather than names, the audience had a laugh at the long number being read out more than once. Costume contest participants were told to go for judging during this intermission with the announcement of who won coming after the third piece of the night.
The third piece was Symphony No. 8 in G major by Antonin Dvorak. This piece was similar in length to the other pieces which means it was definitely condensed considering it was supposed to be forty minutes long. It was mournful and evoked images of epic battles before glorious triumph but I could tell that people were getting anxious by the end, especially for those unused to symphony performances and thus unused to the length of song. By then, the concert, including the intermission, had been going on for well over an hour and I could understand why some in the audience had lost steam. However, knowing that this piece was the last prompted a large wave of applause as the director orchestra took their bow.
Photo Courtesy of Jin Wen Xie '24
When the third piece concluded, the costume contest winner was announced and the winner came down through the doors at the top of the auditorium. The audience cheered as a man dressed in a giant inflatable Kool-Aid Man costume cautiously stumbled down the steps to accept his award: the privilege and conducting the orchestra for their last piece. We watched in amusement as he waved his inflatable arms and the orchestra played as if he had been conducting for his entire life. When the last joyful note rang, the audience cheered, no trace of the fatigue they had previously felt and thus ended the concert.