By KARINA MATOS
The band is like a family. Music is like art. Together all of their instruments’ sounds mesh together to create a gorgeous masterpiece. The piece this year, put together by none other than Matthew Tavares himself, is a medley of all sorts of things that question our thinking, a piece that tries to let you see the positive side of yourself amidst all of the negatives. According to Tavares he “tries to create something that is more than just notes on a page.” Music lives and breaths, and the musicians are the ones that give the music life.
The theme for this year, Tavares said, came about from “a lot of events that give rise to ideas and thoughts and processes.” He said “we have a lot of negative thoughts about ourselves and [the piece] challenges us to think about more of the positive side of our existence.”
Expectations are always high for the band as each year they seem to outdo themselves. Tavares’ expectations are the same as they are every year, which is “to perform it well, to execute it well, [and] do as much as you can to make it art.” He said that “music is supposed to represent an emotion, which is what all good art does,” and that it “puts into life an emotion that is hard to express.”
Even though he has those other expectations for the band he believes that, “as long as they come out of the season with a strong emotional connection to what [we have] been doing and as long as the music itself inspires a strong emotional connection, I think [the music] did everything [it is] supposed to do.”
While winning feels great, Tavares believes that “awards and trophies are for people who really need to be praised by others.” Although he is proud of the band for all they have achieved, he did admit that he, “thinks there are days when its really phenomenal, I think there are days when they have a little bit of a lackluster performance.” However, Tavares said that he “[does not] know what he would do without them,” and that “anyone would be lucky to work with them.”
According to Tavares, “the band is one of the most tight-knit families in the school.” He said that they “really are strongly connected to each other, and they “stick their neck out for each other [and] work harder” together. “They are very focused,” he said, “about being the best at what they can be.” The band is a hard-working group that always exceeds expectation, and they are sure to do justice to Tavares’ “work of art.”
