Mayhem offers an evening of rock

By Denise Dick

The concert is at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Boardman Performing Arts Center.

BOARDMAN — If you go to Boardman High School’s orchestra ensemble performance this week, you won’t hear traditional orchestral pieces.

The 35-member Project Mayhem is a rock orchestra ensemble.

When it hits the stage at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the high school’s auditorium, audience members will hear Top 40 and classic rock hits such as Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and the Charlie Daniels standard “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Tickets are $5 and available at the door.

“It’s an all-student show,” said Bill Amendol, orchestra director.

He and Michelle Vari, also an orchestra director, arrange the music and provide guidance, but it’s the students who run the show.

Aside from performing the music, they also control the sound and lighting for performances.

“We basically just get out of the way,” Amendol said.

This marks the group’s second year. Last year’s first performance drew 1,100 people to the auditorium that holds 1,600.

A regular concert brings in about 700 people, the director said.

“We’re hoping for even more people this year,” he said.

As Project Mayhem rehearsed one day earlier this month, seniors Kristen Reardon and Randi Yazvac, electric violinist and keyboardist, respectively, belted out the first bars of Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love A Bad Name” a capella.

“Shot through the heart and you’re to blame,” the girls sing, hamming it up with hands pressed to their hearts. “Darling, you give love a bad name.”

The orchestra joins in.

For “Devil,” senior Brian Hawkins provides the rapid-fire vocals while the violin section including senior Anne Smrek demonstrates its prowess, bows gliding across the strings.

Kristen, Anne, Randi and fellow seniors Connor O’Halloran, who handles sound duties for Project Mayhem performances, and guitarist Ryan Dutton estimate that they spend about 24 hours each week with music, from group rehearsals to class time to individual practice sessions.

They say it’s worth all of the effort.

“It keeps you creative,” Anne said. “It’s art.”

Kristen says one difference between playing Project Mayhem’s sets versus regular orchestral pieces is the amount of syncopation, or emphasis on the music’s upbeat, in the rock tunes as opposed to the downbeat in other styles.

“With this type of music, it’s less reading the music and more interpretation,” Randi explained. “We had a guest artist come in and talk to us and he said, ‘It’s all about attitude.’”

Ryan loves performing.

“I do it for live performances,” he said.

Ryan picks the Led Zeppelin classic “Stairway to Heaven” as his favorite piece of what’s on tap for Wednesday’s show.

“Says the guitar player,” Connor chuckled, referring to that instrument’s extensive role in the song.

Connor, who plays viola in regular orchestra, said that last year’s show had people dancing in the aisles and coming up to the stage — something unusual for a high school orchestra performance. They’re hoping for a similar reaction this year.