Our introduction consisted of an eerie melody from "Niagara Falls," by Michael Daugherty. A hint of the show ahead, the melody traded off between different sections of the band while the works of art in "The Gallery" were revealed. Eventually, this built into a full band tutti section that tapers off in a series of solos on the field that transition into the next piece.
The next section, "Blue Shades," by Frank Ticheli, is based on the artwork of Vassily Kandinsky. Geometric shapes and lines fill the field, interrupted by an occasional curve during this jazzy piece. The mood of the movement is reflected by the colorguard's playful work and bright uniforms as well as the light, quick tunes found in soli sections in the band. In the second half of the song, heralded by an amplified flute/clarinet solo section, the piece begins to speed up, leading to the memorable "wail section" that had the audience on their feet. The movement was then finished by a fast rotating box and a picture perfect pose from the members of the band.

Our ballad was taken from the movie "The Mission." Entitled "Gabriel's Oboe," by Ennio Morriccone, this piece reflects the abstract art of Jackson Pollack. The melody of this beautiful piece is first presented by a wonderfully performed flute solo while the rest of the band members slowly begin to build from a scatter to a brass arch during a slow crescendo. During the build, the colorguard also performs a feature of beautiful work as well as a dazzling display of color. The build up of tension then dissolves as the flute solo once again takes precedence before the transfer into our final work.

As a finale, we used a reprise from our introduction, "Niagara Falls." Based on the surrealistic works of Salvador Dali, this piece is full of melting and disintegrating forms, as well as a mixture of ethereal and bold melodies that make their way through the song. Some memorable sections include the "evil jazz band" composed of the clarinets and alto saxophones as well as a great variety of colorguard props, including hoses, silver balls, along with a selection of window frames and streamers. This piece also experimented with different marching techniques, such as side stepping and a stomping section. Eventually, the tutti melody played in the beginning of the show recapitulates itself, again dying off into a series of trumpet and alto sax solos from the field during a surrealistic, dreamlike sequence.

During this section, the different sections form moving "membranes" that in turn break off to culminate once again to a full band variety of the main theme of the melody. A percussion feature then leads into a buildup into one of our trademark moves, the "triangle mesh," which then forms into a large box full of small, rotating squares. This then leads to our other trademark, the Marian "M" set. We finished the piece off by a zigzagging brass/low woodwind box that gracefully turned itself into a scalene triangle that included the full band in a driving upward scale.

The students, parents, staff, and directors worked very hard to create a piece of art. We hope you have a chance to see it.