For the second time in ACU Orchestra history, the orchestra played a fall Halloween concert Thursday in complete costume with themed music.

The students in the orchestra began rehearsing for the performance during the second week of school under Dr. Steven Ward, director of bands and orchestra.

The music varied from Glaser to Mussorgsky to Grofe to Humperdinck to Anderson and even Harry Potter.

“Getting to play as principal trumpet in the ACU Orchestra has been great overall,” said Andrew Penney, principal trumpet in the orchestra. “I get to play a lot of awesome repertoire and lead the brass in a lot of ways. What I’ve enjoyed about playing principal this semester is getting to play Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain. I’ve always listened to an old recording of the work performed by Bud Herseth with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and getting to finally perform it myself is exciting.”

Shorter than most orchestra concerts, the Halloween concert lasted one hour with music that the students spent two months practicing the music.

“It’s a great concert to come to if you’ve never been to an orchestra concert, to come to this concert as your first one,” Ward said. “It’s really fun and a little more laid back.”

This was the first complete orchestra show for the department. Though some students participated in playing in the pit for the Homecoming musical, this performance will include all of the orchestra students.

“It’s really great music,” Ward said. “We play Harry Potter and the Andersen Waltzing Cat is really funny, there’s the Mussorgsky Night on Bald Mountain which is very difficult, it’s a real mix of challenging music and of fun music.”

A string quartet of four students, Sean Estes, Mackenzie Menan, Nattapat White and Roger Gee, began the show last night.

This is only the second Halloween concert done by the ACU Orchestra. The first was performed two years ago.

“Our programming for our ensembles depends on what is happening that year,” Ward said. “It just depends on whether we have something else we need to do or whether our Christmas Vespers concert is a lot of music or really hard music. It depends on what the orchestra has to do in a given year whether we can do (the Halloween concert).

This year, the costumes were picked by the students to wear while they played. With candy at the entrances and the Halloween spirit in the air, the concert provided something fresh for traditional orchestra.

“I hope that everybody, the people on stage the audience, I just hope everybody (had) a great time, and gets to hear great music in a fun environment,” Ward said.