All band and orchestra members ended the year with a bang. Tuesday night, the music program performed their last concert in the ACHS auditorium. The festivities started at 7 p.m. and lasted about two hours.

There are two different bands and two orchestras in the school. The first band is the the wind ensemble which includes the top players. The remaining players are in symphonic band.

The orchestra has two sections as well. The chamber orchestra is the higher lever orchestra, and concert orchestra is the other group.

Numerous band seniors won an array of awards, and one award was given out to a senior in the orchestra. Senior Taegan Gandolfi was that recipient this year, winning the National High School Orchestra Award.

This was the first class to graduate through the whole orchestra program under orchestra director Michael Riggs, so there were some special components that were added to the concert.

“There were a few special things that we tried to do for the occasion of our first class of graduating seniors,” Riggs said. “I did a few combined numbers with all of the members of the two orchestras here, one of which was a medley of music from ‘West Side Story.’  ‘West Side Story’ was the first piece that many of these string players ever did at ACHS because several of them played in the pit orchestra for our production of that musical when they were in the 8th grade. This kind of brought it full circle.”