On Thursday, March 5, the percussion classes from Turner Ashby, East Rockingham, Broadway, Spotswood and Harrisonburg High School put their usual rivalries aside and put on a collaborative concert. The classes usually don’t get an opportunity to see each other perform, which is why Becky Ford, the director from Broadway, decided to start this concert experience.

“It’s a great opportunity. I actually started it last year to try and get all the schools together and showcase the percussion. It gives the kids a chance to not be competitive, but to get to see what is wonderful about all of our schools and to collaborate and make new connections,” Ford said. “I just love that we get to see all [of] the different pieces of music and all the different styles of percussion that are going on in the community.” Last year the event was a last-minute decision, so not all of the schools were able to attend. Ford believes that there were a  lot of improvements over last year.

“Having everybody here just makes it a much better experience in general. Then, having the wonderful facilities here at Harrisonburg High School, they are very enviable in the county [schools]  so it was really great to be able to have that,” Ford said.

Each percussion class performed between one and four selections from their repertoire. The concert was started off with a performance by the percussion one class from HHS and ended with a collaboration between percussion two and Dance 3/4. The idea for this collaboration came from director Daniel Upton’s trip to a conductor’s conference earlier in the year, where he heard about a conductor who was doing this sort of thing with his school. The piece the two groups performed together was called “Mercury Rising” by Nathan Daughtrey.

“We wanted to figure out how we could integrate [the performance] more. It’s tough for musicians because when you start spreading them apart and not having them as a close-knit group the listening factor becomes more difficult. We have to consider those type of things and give the dancers enough space to actually make it an effective integration. [The collaboration] came together pretty well,” Upton said.

Junior Alex Osinkosky’s favorite part of the concert was the combined piece.

“[My favorite was] definitely “Mercury Rising”. I just like how we have the light effects and the dancing [with] it. Just the mood of the song is really cool, how it changes,” Osinkosky said.

Upton hopes that they can keep the event going in coming years.

“I hope that it will continue to draw a larger crowd. Percussion has worked really, really hard all year long to do that type of thing and they don’t always have the best audience. I’d like in the future to maybe do something combined with all the groups,” Upton said.