File Photo Wheeling Park High School’s Festival of Sound, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, continues to captivate audiences and will do so again this week.

WHEELING — Wheeling Park High School’s music department will present its 30th annual “Festival of Sound” next week, and the show will highlight the “past, present and future” of WPHS music scholars.

Performances are set for 7 p.m. on Friday, Dec.12 and Saturday, Dec. 13, and for 2 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 14.

Tickets cost $18 for adults, and $8 for children. Ohio County Schools students with identification may attend for free.

Tickets can be ordered prior to the shows at https://gofan.co/app/school/WV2642_2.

Thirty years ago in 1995, music department instructors Pat and Leslie Garrett, Ben Podolski, and Kathy Aspenwall arranged for a combined concert featuring band, strings and chorus students. This took place in the WPHS gymnasium.

The steel drum band, jazz band, hand bell choir and percussion ensemble at WPHS have since become part of the show. Speech and debate students provide narration.

In 1996, the show was moved to the Capitol Theatre, and when it began to attract more supporters, WesBanco Arena became the location.

After the J.B. Chambers Performing Arts Center was opened in 2012, the “Festival of Sound” found its new home. Since the auditorium doesn’t hold as many people as WesBanco Arena, it was decided three separate performances would be scheduled each year.

This year, each of the performances will reflect a first-ever theme for the show, “Past, Present and Future,” explained WPHS Band Director Jason Birch.

Birch said the Friday night show will focus on “the future,” with elementary and middle school students joining students on stage. Music program alumni and past speech and debate students, meanwhile, will return to participate in the Saturday night shows, with current speech students providing narration on Sunday.

“I don’t want to give away the secret, but past alumni are going to be involved in some capacity,” he explained.

At 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, the Garretts, Podolski, Aspenwall and other past instructors in the music department are coming back for a cookies and punch meet and greet in the cafeteria. This will provide an opportunity for them and their former students to “catch up,” Birch said.

He added some of the musical selections to be featured were created by WPHS alumni.

Birch acknowledged a person could come to each of the three shows and see different performances.

Planning for the “Festival of Sound” starts immediately after the prior year’s show ends, Birch said. Students begin practicing for the show throughout the fall.

However, all the components – the band, the choir and the strings students – aren’t able to get together to perform as a group until just a few days before the show, he explained.

“We normally just have one practice before the actual concert, so the kids really have to be on their game,” Birch said. “They have to be prepped and ready to go. It’s just one practice and we’re off to the races.”

Birch is joined by strings director Laura Grube and choir director Christie Greenwood in planning the “Festival of Sound.”