Posted on 09/26/2012 7:46:48 AM PDT by Timber Rattler
Parents met with New Oxford High School Marching Band officials Tuesday night at the high school auditorium in the wake of a controversy over the theme of the band's field show.
The meeting was private and the press was not allowed to attend.
The marching band's show, originally called "St. Petersburg: 1917," made national news when a parent who saw the band's show at a game in Waynesboro a few weeks ago contacted Fox News Radio, offended by the performance he said "celebrates" the Russian revolution. He objected to the use of props that included hammers and sickles, used for years as the symbol of the communist Soviet Union.
(snip)
But because of the recent media attention, the band show's name is being changed and the hammers and sickles used in the performance will be removed, Harbaugh said. The show's introduction will also be changed, she said.
The show still will feature music by Shostakovich, including excerpts from Symphony No. 12 in D minor, Symphony No. 10 in E minor, and ballet suite No. 4. The band's music was purchased from a company that specializes in marching band shows, Harbaugh said.
"Our band director and kids work very, very hard. We apologize for any offense caused," Harbaugh said. "We understand why people were, but it was never our intent."
(Excerpt) Read more at eveningsun.com ...
If they had done your proposed next program they would be watching film of death camps for a year. Perhaps they need to more than apologize and educate the entire school on what the Soviet Union really was.
I would think an assembly for the entire school to hear from some local who lived through it might be appropriate. Then each student could write an essay about the horrors of the Soviet system like the forced starvation etc.
Parents Object to “characterization”..??
No... they objected to it being a COMMUNIST CELEBRATION
Next year they can do A Tribute to Tienanmen with tanks rolling over people..............
“Springtime.....for Stalin.....in Leningrad.....
“Comrades are happy....and gay......
“We’re marching all so strong and tan.....
“Look out, here comes the Five Year Plan....!
;^)
They could call it "Springtime for Hitler"
In defense of Dimitri Shostakovitch he lived during extremely turbulent times in Russia and later the Soviet Union. Many of his compositions were banned by the government and during the purge many of his mentors and associates were imprisoned and later shot. Under duress and fear for his family he spoke in support of the government but his music told a different story. Critics would later write that he would put coded messages in his compositions to ridicule the government. He wrote compositions in support of Jewish peoples during times of anti semitism.
Instead of this being in support of the Russian revolution maybe the school should have promoted the music as the triumph of one very timid man's disagreement with the government that oppressed him.
The marching band was playing symphonies and ballet music? I want to see the string bass players march. Better yet, the harp player marching.
Yeah, I have no problem with Shostakovich. Stalin forced him to write “Socialist Realism” music with a gun literally held to his head, and so your idea about the band’s performance being centered around him rather than the Communist take-over of Russia is spot-on.
Thank you. I have loved Shostakovitch since I was 12 and dragged my father to a music store to find Polka from The Golden Age. I would live to hear a marching band play that.
Ha, ha! Are you kidding? It was a “celebration” of the composer? With sickle and Hammer?
Well I own a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
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This is nothing short of Communist indoctrination. The band officials need to be outed and publicly scorned. They do this sort of thing because they think no one will notice. We need to make an example of them.
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