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The Krueger Middle School band played for a live audience for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both the seventh and eighth grade bands performed a variety of songs on May 5 in the school cafeteria.
Krueger’s band performs live for first time since 2019
By David Symons
Staff Writer
MICHIGAN CITY – After the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the Krueger Middle School seventh and eighth grade band had to cancel that year’s spring performance.
It was unclear when the band would perform publicly again. That all changed on May 5 when Krueger Middle School’s band played live for the public for the first time since 2019 in the Krueger cafeteria.
George Olson, Krueger’s band director, said that the students’ discipline factored into the success of the concert.
“Many of the students are self-directed, and spend quite a bit of time practicing at home, which helped quite a lot,” Olson said.
He also said that after the concert, it really started to sink in that he would miss this batch of eighth graders a little more than the rest.
“We all went through the entire COVID-19 pandemic and online learning thing, and performing for the first time since pre-COVID,” he said. “They’re really such an exceptional batch. I will always remember this crop of eighth graders a little more fondly.”
Olson said that the students exceeded his expectations for the concert in every way.
The band members were happy with their performance.
“I think we performed pretty decently, but we also had some things we could’ve fixed,” said eighth grade band member Weston Smith. “Overall, I was surprised by how many people showed up to the concert.”
Indeed, Olson estimated that between 125-150 people were in the audience.
The band performed several songs. The seventh grade set included George R. Poulton’s “Aura Lee,” Jean-Philippe Rameau’s “Frère Jacques,” and “Hard Rock Blues” and “Old MacDonald Had a Band,” both of which were arranged by John Higgins.
The eighth grade set featured Richard Strauss’ “Sprach Zarathustra (2001: A Space Odyssey theme),” Michael Oare’s “Android Attack,” Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “The Locomotion,” Will Jennings’ and James Homer’s “My Heart Will Go On” and DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean.”
The bands also played multiple songs together, including John Williams’ “Main Title” from Star Wars.
The concert was viewed by many as a great success, and band members are looking forward to performances to come.