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The girls basketball team was hosting Justin-Siena on a recent evening, but that’s not why a small crowd had gathered in the parking lot in front of West County High School.
The Sebastopol school formerly known as — and soon to be renamed — Analy, features a distinctive façade, commissioned as a Great Depression-era WPA project. That space now serves as grand canvas for a dazzling light and music show. Two thousand lights on strings suspended from the school’s roof seemed to pulse and dance with the holiday music coming from two all-weather speakers.
Conceived and executed by West County teachers Walt Hays and Andy DelMonte, with help from some students, the show lasts 32 minutes, and will run continuously every evening, between 5:30 and 8:30 p.m., through New Years.
“We see this as a way to build community, and bring us all together in a fun way,” said Hays.
Making an evening of it on Nov. 30 were Devin Drew, his wife Megan and their middle-school-aged son. Sitting in the parking lot on a bench they pulled from the back of their pickup, the trio put a serious dent in a large bowl of popcorn while the sound and iridescent light washed over them.
Bring your popcorn
Devin Drew described himself as a scientist with a soft spot for the performing arts. As “Ubi Caritas” played in the background — this ethereal version was recorded by El Molino’s Encore choir in 2009 — he praised the project for “bringing the community together.”
He was alluding to the acrimony that has swirled around the West Sonoma County Union High School District since last March, when its board, faced with mounting budget shortfalls, voted to consolidate Analy High School with El Molino High School in Forestville.
Indeed, the night after the Drews basked in the light show, the board voted to cancel plans to rebrand the school, ensuring that West County will soon revert to Analy.
That vote sparked fresh outrage, resulting in some 300 students walking out of class the following morning.
The soundtrack of students, voices raised in song, “is kind of a counter” to that ongoing clash, Drew noted.
To Megan, the show seemed like a collaboration “between the choir, the band and the computer science club.”
A new tradition
It is the brainchild of two veteran teachers. When they first pitched the project, DelMonte and Hays weren’t trying to lower the temperature on debates between Analy and El Molino partisans. They just thought it would be cool to bring a new tradition to the school that employed them.
Hays, who’s been at the high school for 17 years, teaches Maker classes and computer programming. DelMonte is the school’s choir director, which explained the Jay-Z-inspired legend on the back of his hoody (“I got 99 problems, but my pitch ain’t one.”) He’s also taught a wide range of classes in his 25 years at West County.
When DelMonte suggested a light and music show to the administration a year ago, he got an immediate green light, no pun intended. The strife that descended on the district, in the wake of the decision to consolidate the two schools, made the light extravaganza an even better idea.
A pair of generous donations, from Sebastopol’s Rotary Club, and from the town’s iconic ice cream shop, Screamin’ Mimi’s, defrayed most of the cost of equipment, including LED strings, speakers, and a wired pixel controller — the spectacle’s computerized nerve center.
Before buying anything, they consulted the county’s oracle of music and light shows. Every December, Nathan Miller bedecks his Santa Rosa home with a cutting-edge extravaganza that makes the light show arranged by Clark Griswold, of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, seem understated and primitive.
Miller met the teachers at West County High over the summer, and encouraged them to take the plunge. “He gave us suggestions on equipment, vendors, who to buy from, because we had no idea,” said DelMonte.
Channeling MacGyver
He and Hays complemented each other well. DelMonte, with his background in audio recording, was better suited to programming the lights — syncing them to the music, and arranging the effects.
"dazzling" - Google News
December 06, 2021 at 08:13AM
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Eclipsing the discord: teachers unveil dazzling new light and music show at West County High School - Santa Rosa Press Democrat
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