KEYSER, W.Va. — Keyser High School’s Golden Tornado marching band is performing a space-themed halftime show for its fall season.
The “Adventure in Space” show has three parts and takes aspects of different space-related media to tell a story.
“It’s kind of a mix between an orchestra piece called planets, plus there’s ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Star Wars’ in it,” junior Abby Cook said. “But our band director wrote it all out and made it into one big piece.”
The first part of the show features the songs, “Also Sprach Zarathustra” and “Star Trek.” The songs transcend listeners with familiar tunes into the journey they’ve embarked through outer space.
“My favorite part of band is probably the games because we’re just allowed to be ourselves, basically,” band captain Joel Simpson said.
The second part of the band’s performance is slower yet triumphant and features “Venus,” “The Force Theme” and “Neptune” as it leads into the final portion with a collection of planet songs by Gustav Holst.
Band director Nathan Wilson began piecing together songs for the performance in January.
“I ask the students sometime around January if they have any specific requests or ideas for the show,” Wilson said. “And then whatever ideas that I get the most of, I work the best to put those together into a show.”
The students all agree that they have fun with the performance, but their favorite part is the planet songs.
In part three, they perform a light saber battle on the field with Jupiter, Mars and “Star Wars” themes.
“It’s an adventure through space,” Cook said. “An alien came and picked you up and abducted you and you visited some planets, and got to see some people fighting in space.”
The students have been successful at area competitions, winning first place at the Autumn Glory Tournament of Bands in Oakland.
“I enjoy getting students to enjoy making music. I know a lot of band directors who are like, ‘We’re going to be really good. We’re going to go to competitions and win competitions,’” Wilson said. “But my focus is getting my students to enjoy making music because it makes a bigger difference on them as people and as musicians.”
The band is raising money for new uniforms and accepting donations through Venmo. Money can be sent to @khsbanduniformdrive.