CHS Music Show - December 15th at 7 p.m.

“If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”

Jimi Hendrix said that, while he was doing that very thing. I think each and every one of us tucked away back here in the Music Department can get behind that. Maybe more than anyone I’ve ever met, these young musicians at Collier High School are physical manifestations of music’s ability to effect change.

Every year, we dive, amplifier-first, into preparations for our winter show. In spite of the routine, I am consistently surprised. I am surprised not only by the very obvious talent, but by the effort these musicians are making to really say something. Before your music can change anyone or anything else, you need to surrender to the idea that it can change you. And this music is changing these musicians. It is gratifying to see an otherwise anxious or withdrawn student in our alternative school morph into a confident performer behind a guitar, microphone or drum set. Music sets them free to express themselves in new and exciting ways.

This time around, we’ll be taken back with Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven; told that we won’t be used through the words of punk rocker Avril Lavigne, and taught about the perils of propaganda by Living Colour. Some guitarists will be channeling Jimi, and drumsticks will be shattered over I Am Abomination. Our young players taught me something a few years ago: Every guitarist, bassist, drummer, pianist, flautist and vocalist are saying the same thing to us: “Here I am.” Thus the once-struggling student finds a home and finds a voice in music and is forever changed.

Want my never-fail cure for the grey and cold of winter? A good dose of rock-show – December 15th, 7:00PM, here at Collier School. Come out and enjoy the result of hard-work and talent, and be open to the possibility of being changed, like these budding rock stars change me every year.

--Tom O'Brien, Music Teacher