Music department students performed various traditional music pieces at the annual Collage performance on Dec 4 and 5. Collage brings the audience to a new world of music and lets them connect to new cultures each year. 

Collage goes out of its way to incorporate other cultures’ traditional elements into the performance. Cultural folk groups such as Mariachi, Korean Percussion, and Steel Pans played traditional music from different countries around the world, bringing culture and music together, producing an amazing production. 

“I’m actually in a mariachi band, which [uses] music from Mexico,” junior orchestra student Molly Simmons said. “It’s not what we would call traditional White people music, and that just brings so much diversity into the musical world of Collage.”

All of these forms of music celebrate vastly different cultures from one another. Yet, even though all the performers have different interests, Collage shows that diversity can be unifying for the performers.  

“I’ve noticed that a lot of different people with several different interests,” junior orchestra student Anusha Raghvendiran said. “But we’re all unified through our love for music.” 

In music, each style symbolizes certain cultures and connects us to cultures as outsiders looking in. The opportunity to do such interesting forms of music allows Metea Valley students to garner a deeper understanding of other cultures. Junior Mariachi student Emmet Freeman explains the different instruments they use in Korean percussion. 

“The small Gong that people hold in their hands is supposed to represent lightning,” Freeman said.

But music doesn’t just explore tradition; music builds community. By joining these various music groups, students are able to create friendships. 

“I went to Korean percussion because I wanted to expand [not only on] my musical prowess, but also to understand the culture behind the instruments and gain more friends,” Freeman said.

While the audience may not always be able to understand what type of music is being played, some form of connection is still established through the feelings music can create. 

“Today, I hope that they get to experience something new, see something they’ve never seen before,” Simmons said.