Music Tradition
Joliet West has been known for its outstanding music programs, both instrumental and choral. Many alumni continue on in music as a career, including Charlie Adams, John Barrowman, Jimmy Chamberlin, Andy Dick, Doug Pinnick, Anthony Rapp, and Janina Gavankar. The Marching Tigers, Joliet West's marching band, is one of the few groups that held the Tiger name throughout the adoption and relinquishment of the Steelman mascot. There have been five band directors at Joliet West: Arthur D. Katterjohn, 1964–1968; Dean H. Sayles, 1968–1990; I. V. Foster, 1990–1992; Ted Lega, 1992–1993, and Kevin T. Carroll, 1993–present. The band program has consistently received high scores at competitions and has been invited to the Superstate band festival multiple times.
In April 2008, Joliet West High School was the first high school to perform a comic opera of Edwin Penhorwood entitled "Too Many Sopranos".
Recently, Joliet West High School's music program has come to note by being one of only a handful of high schools to have an "Opera Scenes" program, performing snippets from different operas translated into English. The Joliet West Vocal Music department has performed scenes ranging from "La Boheme" to "Die Fledermaus" to "Dialogues of the Carmelites". September 25, 2009's Scenes of Murder, featuring "Don Giovanni", "Hänsel and Gretel", "Dido and Aeneas", and the aforementioned "Dialogues of the Carmelites", surpassed the attendance of the 2008 spring play; 338 people attended the event. A 13-foot guillotine was built specifically for 2009's Opera Scenes.
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Famous quotes containing the words music and/or tradition:
“Good-by, my book! Like mortal eyes, imagined ones must close some day. Onegin from his knees will rise—but his creator strolls away. And yet the ear cannot right now part with the music and allow the tale to fade; the chords of fate itself continue to vibrate; and no obstruction for the sage exists where I have put The End: the shadows of my world extend beyond the skyline of the page, blue as tomorrow’s morning haze—nor does this terminate the phrase.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“I am ... by tradition and long study a complete snob. P. Marlowe and I do not despise the upper classes because they take baths and have money; we despise them because they are phony.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)