Prisms illuminates OPRF

Student+musicians+rehearse+for+Prisms

Photo by Lucy Mann

Student musicians rehearse for Prisms

Editor’s Note: This article was printed before the show happened. An article on the performance will be published next month.

After a brief cancellation, Prisms of Winter, the annual music festival at OPRF, was reinstated. The annual concert was held on Dec. 10 and 11 in the auditorium.

Director Anthony Svejda said that the concert is titled “Prisms” because the performance mimics what a prism does, a total reflection in all directions.

“The music you will hear is not just on stage in front of you, it could be right behind you, on the side of you, to the left, or to the right of you,” said Svejda. “It is everywhere.”

The show was non-stop for an hour and a half, with an “instant and seamless transition” between each act, said senior and ensemblist Tate Sherman. Singing groups, bands, string groups, and other groups perform during Prisms every year. According to Sherman, it is an “amazing feat” of organization.

Director Meredith McGuire says when Prisms was initially cancelled during the wave of cancellations due to a spike in COVID cases, she was “sad for the music students, specifically for the seniors because this was going to be their last Prisms.” After the performance was brought back, she says she was “glad it’s going to happen.”

Prisms already had “solid protocol in place to keep the audience distances and choir students…distanced,” says McGuire. However, she said there were changes to rehearsals, as performers are not going to be able to practice much due to the testing occurring in the auditorium.

Svejda was also hopeful for the performance. He said he thinks Prisms is the “perfect way to get everyone into the holiday spirit.”

Before the show, Svejda said they all were “looking forward to bringing back something that this school and community needs. Something that some could arguably say is one of the best things we have to offer at OPRF.”