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HARLINGEN — Ava Gutierrez stood atop the platform and waved her colorful flag in the bright of the morning sun.
The music of the show “Time Travel” on the parking lot of Harlingen High School seemed to direct her movement with the color guard of the band. However, her spirit for the school year and for the Cardinal band empowered her intensity and her passion as she performed.
That passion seemed to empower every student Tuesday morning as the flags rippled, as the saxophones and trumpets charged into the air, and as the drumline thundered.
“It’s going amazing,” said Ava, 16, a junior, giving special accolades to the color guard.
“They’re destroying it,” she continued, meaning they were killing it, or rather taking firm control of their parts and mastering those parts and for performing in unison with the rest of the band.
The sections moved together with admirable precision, perfect diagonals and straight lines and forward steps and backward steps while playing.
“Let me hear that one more time,” said Maria Coronado, band director.
“Great work,” she continued. “Give yourselves a hand.”
The kids clapped for a moment and then …
“OK, drum majors, here we go,” Coronado continued.
And then the high-pitched “ding-ding-ding” of the metronome, and then the rather fluid and dreamy notes of the vibraphones and the melophones and then the brass making a sudden appearance to signal the drama and the majesty of it all.
Coronado spoke excitedly about the show, a fine amalgam of styles and pieces woven together in a lovely tapestry of sounds which would take listeners on a magical journey through time.
“We titled it ‘Time Traveler’ because the music that we are preparing for our season jumps around,” she said. “It starts with 1988 – 89 ‘Fast Car’, and then it jumps over to 2014 with a real fun band piece entitled ‘Ride’ by Sam Hazo, and then it jumps back to 1880, a piece called the ‘Manfred Symphony’ by Tchaikovsky and we just …”
Whew! That’s quite a road trip just talking about it!
For clarity, “Fast Car” is a hit song performed by Tracy Chapman in 1988. Pyotr Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer.
“It just jumps around with each of those three songs with one another, and it actually works really really well,” Coronado said. “I think what’s making it one of the more unique ones in quite awhile is the way that our music arranger put together the music, the sound, the production of the sound, of the tones, it’s pretty outstanding and we’re really excited.”
Michael Whalen, 15, stood tall on the parking lot in the morning heat and pressed his lips tightly around the mouthpiece of his saxophone. On Coronado’s command, he sent his saxophone’s song high and clear and powerful into the whole of the musical tapestry of the entire band.
“We are enjoying it,” said Michael, a sophomore. “There’s a lot of energy and we’re coming together as a group.”
