Family, friends and music lovers came out to celebrate the culmination of a year of pop music students’ hard work at Portola High’s sixth annual Porchella on May 15 and 16. Like past years, the music festival-inspired event featured performances from beginning and advanced ensembles and food stands, while incorporating the theme, “dreams,” for Friday performances. This is the second year that the event has been split into two nights.
Night one featured a blues funk band consisting of all Guitar 1 students, groups from Guitar 2 and two Pop Performance Ensembles who closed out the night. On night two, audiences heard a contemporary piece from Guitar 1, sets by all eight Studio Music bands, Pop Performance ensembles and a rendition of Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams,” performed by the Portola High MegaBand, an ensemble consisting of all the pop music students.
“It’s really crazy that we get to have events like this that are just so big and have so many people,” bassist and senior Megan Brander said. “Getting to play music with the people I care about is really amazing.”
Porchella is an opportunity for students to explore their unique musical styles and embrace personal interpretations of the theme on Friday, according to Time Out vocalist and junior, Sarah Aljazzar.
“The theme was dreams, but we decided to do the opposite — kind of like a nightmare,” Aljazzar said. “In one of our songs, it says, ‘I’m over this teenage dream,’ because not all dreams are good, so we had to switch it up a bit.”
Toward the end of each day, bands lit up the evening with rock classics such as “Teenage Dirtbag,” “Somewhere Only We Know” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” Members of the Pop Performance band, Ground Wire, had crowds gathered in front of the stage singing and dancing to their original song, “Power,” as they closed the final concert for most of their members.
“There aren’t very many live music venues in Irvine, and there are not many places where teenagers can go to see live music,” Traska said. “[W]e try to facilitate that space where you can play games with your buddies and listen to music, because without that appreciation, the art form continues to not exist. If we have a small impact on people to come and experience the energy and the passion that the students have, that will allow them to realize that it is something beneficial, and it would be great to see our community jump-start live music back in.”
