WATERTOWN — Hundreds of people gathered at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Watertown to hear about four minutes of music that had become the center of a community controversy.
About 20 Watertown High School band students, volunteers, and original composer Omar Thomas performed "A Mother of a Revolution!" in a concert separate from the school district.
"This day in music terms feels like a crescendo," Clayton Fliess, a Watertown High School symphony student, said.
Thomas wrote the piece to honor transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson and the 1969 Stonewall Riots. TMJ4 met with him for an exclusive interview right after the performance.
"To be able to play a piece to a packed house, literally packed house that is about centering the queer community, the trans community, the queer trans community and just have everyone in that moment, is a gift to me. That is a gift to I think everyone in that room. I think we all left a little bit changed," Thomas said. "This is truly the definition of a community coming together and I'm just honored to be able to drop myself in the middle of it for just a short moment in time."
The piece had drawn backlash from the Watertown School Board. At a meeting last week members said it violates their controversial issues policy and voted to remove it from the high school's spring concert. Students had been practicing the piece for months before the vote.
Matt McVeigh, a volunteer musician from Sun Prairie, said performing alongside the students was an act of community support.
"Being here to perform with these kids is a way we can support each other. There's really three communities I feel like impacted here. There's the Watertown community, the LGBTQ community and the band community. To me this is what communities do we band together no pun intended," McVeigh said.
For the students, the moment carried lasting meaning.
"At first I was surprised, I didn't know people would do this for the band especially high school band, but they did and it shocked me," Fliess said.
Fellow symphony student Theo Hire said the community's response made the performance one he won't forget.
"I'm glad they gave us the chance to actually perform it after we have worked on it for so long," Hire said. "I'll probably remember this one for the rest of my life."
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