Slide into your seat and listen
A haunted carousel spins. An ancient curse stirs. Somewhere in the band, a rubber chicken is about to make its entrance.
The Pacific Coast Wind Ensemble will bring all three to Yachats on Saturday, Oct. 24, with “Monsters, Mummies & Rubber Chickens,” a Halloween program mixing eerie stories, familiar movie music and some outright silliness.
The program includes “The Curse of Tutankhamen” and “Haunted Carousel,” with a theremin adding to the latter’s otherworldly sound. “Halloween Hobgoblins,” from Alfred Reed’s “Suite No. 6,” adds another seasonal twist.
A selection of Danny Elfman music will bring some familiar screen worlds into the concert hall, drawing from “Tales from the Crypt,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “Beetlejuice” and “Spider-Man.”
Literature gets into the Halloween spirit with “Author’s Suite,” a three-movement work inspired by authors and their creations. Its final movement, “Mary Shelley Meets Frankenstein,” draws on one of literature’s most enduring monster stories.
Then things get a little less frightening and considerably more ridiculous.
“The Rubber Chicken Galop” is fast, funny and exactly as advertised, with band members actually playing rubber chickens during the piece.
“Great Locomotive Chase” supplies train sounds and a burst of action, while “Whale Warriors,” inspired by people who worked to protect whales, takes the program beyond Halloween and adds another musical story to the afternoon.
Sharing conducting duties will be Dr. Ernie Hills, professor of music emeritus at California State University, and Associate Directors Amie Brecheisen of Taft High School in Lincoln City, Patrick Jimmerson of Crestview Heights School in Waldport and Daniel Galarneau of Toledo K-12 Music.
Hills describes the program as “frightfully fun,” an appropriate description for a concert capable of traveling from an ancient Egyptian curse to a rubber chicken in the space of a few selections.
Admission is free, with donations suggested. Free refreshments will be available, along with treats for kids who come in costume.
Saturday’s concert begins at 4 pm at the Yachats Commons, located at 441 Hwy. 101 N. For more information, go to pcwindensemble.org.