As Sam Doniger of Frontrunner strums down on his guitar while moving his Jimmy Page-like hair around, Sophia Apt ’11 runs up to sing “Price of Living” with the band. You almost forget that you are at school on a Friday night, but Dr. Millar’s disapproving wince directed at the hair snaps you back to reality.
Frontrunner, along with Hero Status and The Black Tie Rebels, were the live performance acts in Caswell at the second annual Arts and Music Production, AMP, on January 29.
Despite all the promotion-youtube videos, posters, and several announcements at all school and class meetings- AMP attracted only 250 people, a major decrease compared to last year’s successful 400.
“Next year we just have to do a better job of publicizing the event and having more of a variety of the main stage acts. AMP may turn into an event ever two years, but we are not sure,” Neima Patterson, eleveth grade arts representative, said.
“We learned from mistakes made last year, and arts council worked on improvements,” Dina Chang ’12, tenth grade arts representative, said.
One change made was to have acoustic acts playing in the Intimate Theatre when the bands were not on stage. Acoustic artists ranged from Marlborough’s own Megan Fay ’12 and Dina Chang ’12, who played sang, played guitar and ukulele, to Crossroads’ Jeff Rossen ‘12 and Dakota Blue ’10 from Wildwood of The Mighty Might, and Oakwood’s Jodie Landau ’10 who wowed the crowed with his marimbas.
“Playing at AMP was such a rewarding experience…to play in front of such a respectful, appreciative audience, who had all gathered for the soul purpose of sharing and viewing art, was truly a joy,” Landau said.
Another change made this year was opening up AMP to the entire student body, and was a way for more students to show up.
“Inviting the younger students didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. The entire night was great, so it didn’t really matter that they were there,” said Rebecca Feuer ’11.
Despite all the improvements, some students did not show up to AMP because they felt that their arts representatives were not giving enough information about other performances in the arts department to their classes.
“When the artists themselves need to announce their own events, something needs to change,” said Phoebe Benya ’12.
AMP raised over 1,790 dollars which all goes to Inner-City Arts, an education center located on Skid Row that provides students with an opportunity to balance academic and artistic studies.
Ellie Manos ’13, the 9th grade Arts Rep, said that her first AMP was worth all the planning and setting up.
“AMP is not just like any other typical high school event. Having live music and student artwork makes it more than that,” Manos said.
