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Halloween is usually a time for trick-or-treating or watching scary movies, but at Southern Virginia University, Halloween is the time for Halloween on the Hill.
Halloween on the Hill is a multifaceted music concert involving as many groups on campus as possible. Hosted by the instrumental chamber music program, students, faculty and community members gather together to listen to good music and have a fun time.
This year was the fourth year of Halloween on the Hill and it took place on Halloween night. The concert’s director, Megan Mason, dressed up as Miss Frizzle from “The Magic School Bus” and magically transported the MC of the show, student body President Benjamin Whitted, into a TV.
From that point on, the concert included a mix of videos of the MC intermingled with performances by instrumental chamber duos and trios, music industry bands, the orchestra, and Accolade (the school’s a cappella group), as well as a dance skit performed by the faculty. In addition, the night featured several videos drawn and compiled by the art program, several Charlie Brown-inspired videos produced by the theater department, and three cameo videos by well-known actors Dulé Hill (“Psyche”), Kimberly J. Brown (“Halloweentown”), and David Henrie (“Wizards of Waverly Place”). Around 350 people attended the concert.
Assistant director Annalyce Lueck, a student at SVU and the teacher’s assistant for Mason, explained why so many groups on campus were involved in the event.
“The idea was to pull as many people together to have it be a diverse kind of concert,” she said.
Much of her responsibility involved emailing to get people together, a difficult task considering that the concert featured the art and theater programs, student government, the student life group, and even a faculty skit, which has become a staple in the concert. Past years have also featured a short story from the writing department.
The concert is also a prime time to feature some of the smaller music groups on campus, such as bands in the music industry program, piano students, Accolade, and instrumental chamber ensembles, to a larger audience.
Lueck also performed as a violinist in a piano trio as one of the chamber music ensembles, and she explained that Halloween on the Hill is one of their biggest concerts in the fall semester.
In fact, she enjoys performing in this concert in particular because of the creative freedom the musicians are allowed, specifically “having the creative freedom to be as expressive with ourselves as we are with our music.”
Such creativity could be seen in this year’s concert when the pianist in Lueck’s music trio was wheeled in on a table as Frankenstein before lumbering to the piano to perform “Franck.”
This fun concert was Mason’s creation, and it was established with three main ideas behind it: feature parts of the music program that don’t get featured campuswide, collaborate with different parts of campus, and enjoy a fun event that both kids and college students can come to.
So she settled on a concert around Halloween. She explained, “I think there’s so much room for fun on Halloween, that we really weren’t taking advantage of it.”
The first concert was held in 2019, and a digital version was aired the following year due COVID-19. There was not a Halloween on the Hill in 2021 because of the school’s production of the musical “Into the Woods,” but it resumed in 2022. And it will continue to go. Mason explained that she already has some ideas for future years.
