The Big Purple performed a preview of the Homecoming half-time performance featuring songs Scheherazade and Mumbo. (a photo by Hannah V. Johnson)

“Tell Me a Story” is the theme for the band performance at the homecoming game.

The Big Purple marching band played the first two songs of their homecoming set during the last home game as a preview. 

The band will start with Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov as the opener. The piece was named after the main character in One Thousand and One Nights.

Brandon Houghtalen, director of Big Purple Marching Band from Maryville, Tennessee, said Scheherazade told a story every night to prolong her life because the king took a new wife each day. In the book, if she did not keep telling stories, she would be executed.

Mumbo from West Side Story comes next. Houghtalen added this song in dedication to American composer Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday. Bernstein composed West Side Story.

“Mumbo was a lot of fun,” Houghtalen said. “It just worked out perfectly to do that this year.”

A mashup of two pieces, The Story of Tonight by Lin-Manuel Miranda from Hamilton: The Musical and Chester by William Billings, follow Mumbo. Since both of the pieces deal with revolution, Houghtalen thought to bring the pieces together.

This is Me from The Greatest Showman is the last piece the band will play for the performance.

“So we start with an older story and we move to one of the twentieth century and then the last two pieces are really current,” Houghtalen said.

Marissa Lietz, band president and senior music education major from New Braunfels, said the four pieces go with the theme of “Tell Me a Story.”

“I think that’s awesome just for this homecoming experience because we’re all sort of coming home,” Leitz said. “We all have really kind of come up with our own stories here at ACU.”

“Tell Me Your Story” was going to be the original theme name, but Houghtalen thought it seemed too preachy.

“We’re here to have fun,” Houghtalen said. “These pieces work really well together. They’re all written from the standpoint of telling a story or helping to tell a story.”