Hamilton, an award winning broadway musical with beautiful soundtracks, inspiring instrumentals, and a moving story, follows the story of Alexander Hamilton throughout the American Revolution. “Alexander Hamilton,” “You’ll Be Back,” “The Battle of Yorktown,” and “My Shot,” are the core themes of this year’s halftime show.
Upper School Band Director, Mr. Eddie Jimenez, said, “We probably went through five or six different show concepts before we landed on Hamilton. We always try to choose crowd pleasers and things everyone can relate to. I think I was jamming out to the musical in my house, and it hit me! That’s it! That’s our show! Thus, Hamilton was born, and the rest is history.”
The energy and talent of these band students proves to be a crowd pleaser every Friday night. A new aspect of the show is the rap section in the opening song, “Alexander Hamilton.” The band kept it a surprise to the fans which caused them to be astonished at this total switch-up of traditional band performances. Mr. Jimenez said, “My favorite part of the show is the very beginning when students are rapping, and everyone is jumping up and down on top of the props. The crowd goes wild when twins Nami and Numi do their swag thing. That entire opening section is just hip and cool, and it has a lot of energy. You could feel that energy coming from the performers and hyping up the audience.”
In contrast to the hype of the first song at the beginning of the show, the following two songs, “You’ll Be Back” and “Yorktown” are very sentimental but still full of energy. These songs are both extremely melodic and have a good rhythm. Accompanied by visuals throughout, Act Two and Act Three have a lot more movement and freeform, with the band members themselves choosing how some parts are done.
Additionally, there’s an actual color guard aspect this year. Junior Yinghao Ho is the sole member of the color guard, serving as both the captain and the director. His performance and late addition to the band is a total surprise to the student body, and he will be playing Alexander Hamilton throughout the show, doing both acting and choreography.
The composition of the songs, performance visuals of the band, and the new addition of a color guard, all make up the very unique aspects of the 2021 band’s half-time performance of Hamilton and will be remembered for years to come as an outstanding performance!