By: Kellie Finch
On a crisp, Massachusetts morning, Darcie Aungst walks to the mayor’s office. Just as she does every week, Darcie also passes an old, 19th-century church. Except, she comes to realize it’s not a church at all. It’s an art gallery. Gallery X, to be more specific.
Located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Gallery X is an avant-garde art gallery that features local artists and high school students from around the area.
“It has this mystical, magical feeling to it,” Darcie said. “They really do bring art to life.”
Each time Darcie walks past the gallery, she’s drawn into its aesthetic. Filled with inspiration, Darcie decides Gallery X would be the perfect indoor percussion show for the group she works with, Dartmouth High School.
“I imagine at night, sort of being in this mystical art gallery where all of the art literally comes off the canvas and comes to life,” Darcie said.
Darcie approached Dartmouth’s Director of Percussion Thomas “Tom” Aungst with the idea—and Tom was immediately hooked. Then it was time for the real brainstorming to begin: how to bring Darcie’s vision to life.
The show, entitled “Gallery X: Where Art Comes to Life,” brought the little Massachusetts art gallery to Dayton, Ohio. Different gallery wings highlighted various forms of artwork, with accompanying music. This made up the different movements of the show—with each note being hand-picked to fit each brush stroke.
“We wanted the art to be really different,” Darcie said. “With each of those different visual artists, we needed to find music that matched.”
Darcie and Tom researched several well-known artists and their individual styles. For each, they tried to determine what music would sound like that artwork, like pairing a disjointed Picasso painting with an angular, detailed battery piece. One of their top priorities in this process was making the show accessible to the audience.
“We want everyone in the audience to connect with our show,” Darcie said. “I want that connection—that’s what good art should do.”
One movement highlighted a piece from Modest Mussorgsky’s suite, “Pictures at an Exhibition,” entitled “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.” To go along with the piece, one of Dartmouth’s props featured a painting of a group of unhatched chicks, fit with arms and legs that stuck out from the shells.
“Immediately, as soon as [Tom] played it, I said, ‘We have to do that song,’” Darcie said.
Darcie knew the best way to portray Mussorgsky’s work would be to have the unhatched chicks appear mid-show, adding a different, fun element to their performance. Having an exciting way to put a spin on a popular classical piece solidified the team’s choice to use it.
“I like to play great music. I like to arrange great music,” Tom said. “Who better than Mussorgsky or Beethoven and playing that music to make you feel a certain way.”
Despite planning a show he knew would resonate with the audience, Dartmouth’s finals performance in Dayton hit harder than Tom ever could have expected.
“We want to have arrival points,” Tom said. “When all those things hit, when the audience is engaged and there’s even more, we go, “Wow. This is incredible.’”
A lot of credit should be given to the students, Tom said. The work ethic and drive they had was like nothing else, which was especially impressive given that nine of the students were middle schoolers, with two being in seventh grade.
“To get seventh graders and high school students to look and sound like professionals, I think, is pretty impressive,” Tom said.
The more experienced members worked hard to help out the younger ones in learning music and drill, but also in attitude, Darcie said. This made all the difference.
“You really saw the seniors this year, calmly and through being role models, lead the group to be consistent in attitude, in work ethic and in performance, throughout the whole season,” Darcie said. “Usually, you hit a plateau in March, either with attitude, performance or work ethic, but this year, we didn’t really do that. They were extremely consistent.”
For Cody Dumas, a member of Dartmouth’s battery, the way to achieve what they did with their 2024 show was all about maximizing their skill. This meant ensuring the information made it from the staff to the older kids, before they passed it to the younger kids.
“All the seventh and eighth graders can be just as good as the graduating seniors and section leaders,” Dumas said. “So, it’s really cool seeing the younger kids live up to the skills of the older kids that have been doing it for four or five years.”
Having just graduated, Dumas said he and the other seniors had been looking forward to the 2024 season for quite some time. Many of them had been in the program since 2019.
“Going to Dayton and watching the show after we performed online was probably the best feeling ever,” Dumas said. “All five years of work, of marching band and indoor and scheduling extra practices so that we could be ahead of the curve, was really the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”
Dumas said he even had someone from another program come up to him in the merchandise tent at World Championships finals and play Dartmouth’s snare feature for him. Memories like that can’t be replaced, and that’s the beauty of the activity.
For Tom, as he nears the end of his career with the indoor marching arts, he reflects on his time at Dartmouth with nothing but adoration.
“It’s a lot, but it’s rewarding,” Tom said.
Working alongside Darcie, the staff and students at Dartmouth has been something special, Tom said. Everything comes to an end, but this is something he’ll be grateful for, forever.
“Enjoy the process, enjoy your time, because it goes fast,” Tom said. “When it’s all over, I’m going to be proud of what [Darcie] and I have created here at Dartmouth.”
About the Author:
Kellie Finch is an undergraduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill pursuing her BA in Media and Journalism through the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. At UNC, she is a member of the Marching Tar Heels in the tenor saxophone section. She participated in WGI winds during all four years of high school playing the alto saxophone, where she discovered her love for music and the activity through her experiences and the people she met.
