Photo by Laura Hinojosa ‘23.
By Emma Watkins ’23
Copy Chief & Arts & Entertainment Editor
On the rainy night before Halloween, the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra welcomed its first in-person audience since March 2020 to the 11th annual Monsters’ Ball. The balcony of Chapin Auditorium was practically filled to the brim with attendees, most of whom dressed up in Halloween costumes for the occasion. Instead of wearing traditional concert attire, the musicians also donned Halloween costumes, dressing up as Spider-Man, the Duolingo owl, a butterfly, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and the protagonist from the 2019 folk horror film “Midsommar” — to name only a few.
In previous years, Monsters’ Ball had a larger emphasis on dancing and was described on the College’s events calendar as the “annual Halloween dance party.” In 2019, the event moved from its long term location in Abbey Memorial Chapel to Chapin Auditorium. In this new space, there was plenty of room for attendees to dance since the orchestra was seated on the stage instead of the floor.
Sarah Day ’22, cellist and orchestra president, discussed the overall event of Monsters’ Ball and the selection of the music. “We usually play maybe twice the amount of music we did [this time]. There’s a lot more dancing; it’s a lot more of a production, basically,” Day said.
“When we decided to [perform with the orchestra seated on the dance floor], we made the decision to evaluate the music and the sound of the music more, rather than the intensity of the event,” they added.
“When we decided to [perform with the orchestra seated on the dance floor], we made the decision to evaluate the music and the sound of the music more, rather than the intensity of the event.” ”
The selection and sound of the music was evidently well-received, based on the audience’s reactions throughout the night. When Orchestra Director and Associate Professor of Music Tianhui Ng mentioned the “Harry Potter” series, members of the audience erupted in cheers and applause. Opening their set with John Williams’ “The Chamber of Secrets,” the titular song from the second “Harry Potter” movie, the orchestra brought spectators into the world of witchcraft and wizardry. Dressed in a sparkling wizard robe, Ng helped bring the movie soundtrack to life.
Despite the lack of the dance floor, Ng invited the audience to dance at the start of Austrian composer Johann Strauss II’s “The Beautiful Blue Danube.” Some audience members swayed along to the music, and others took dance partners into the aisles to have room to waltz.
The musicians then switched gears, playing three songs from the space opera franchise, “Star Wars,” showcasing the intensity of the brass and strings.
When discussing the different setup of Monster’s Ball this year, Day said the spatial organization of the orchestra proved to be a challenge.
Day explained the main challenge that arose from the different organization was “absolutely about returning to the sense of ensemble in our ears.” They also explained that being in Chapin Auditorium and playing on the floor instead of the stage changed the way audience members heard the music “because sound [bounces] off the walls in different ways.”
Addressing the movie themes they performed, Day commented that those pieces had a different energy from the more classical numbers like the ones from Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky and Strauss. “Both of those are composed by John Williams, who has a very particular style,” Day said. “He certainly is not a composer for the instrument, he’s a composer for the sound … [which] means it’s a different challenge.”
Before the orchestra performed their final selection from “Star Wars,” they revisited the music of Strauss and played “Thunder and Lightning Polka,” a song they play “pretty much every year,” according to Day. With bold dynamics and exciting percussion, “Thunder and Lightning Polka” possessed high energy from the very first note until the last, and many audience members responded enthusiastically with lively dancing and some clapping along.
The energy from this performance marked a powerful start to the orchestra’s concert season, which will continue for the remainder of the academic year. The next MHSO concert, Pandemic Virtuosi, will take place in December and feature Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Violin Concerto No. 5 in A Major” and German composer Robert Schumann’s “Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54.” Reflecting on the return to concerts on campus, Day stated the orchestra feels “really grateful to be able to play in person again.”