The scene Friday night was surreal by most definitions of a school orchestra concert:
Five hundred student musicians dressed in blue jeans and matching black T-shirts, stabbing the air with their bows while rocking out to classic Jimi Hendrix and Kansas.
A group of their peers pressed against the stage at the enormous Victory Assembly of God hall, pounding their fists in the air, screaming and squealing as a kid named Brandon rocked out on a viola-sized Cobra cello strapped to his chest.
Those student musicians were rock stars.
And that was the point of electric violinist Mark Wood's "Electrify Your Strings" program, which he presented with Marana students.
Wood spent five days with the students — from elementary to high school — rehearsing them for Friday's concert. Proceeds from ticket sales went to the school district, which will use part of it to fund the district's arts programs.
This was the third year Wood has come to Marana. In years past he worked with the high school and middle school students; this year he opened it up to elementary kids.
For five days, he rehearsed with the kids, instilling in them not just classic rock repertoire scored for orchestra but a sense of self.
Don't be mistaken; those kids sounded great. Not flawless, but pretty great, adding a big wall of sound to gems like Kansas' "Carry On My Wayward Son" and backing Wood on electric violin and his rock band, which includes his vocalist wife Laura Kaye and his 15-year-old drummer son Elijah Wood, on a pair of the band's original songs.
But the real thrill of Friday's concert for many of the 2,000 people who attended was seeing those kids strut so confidently afterward. The whole notion of band nerd — the kid who totes the violin to class and spends all their free time in the music room — was turned on its head. Kids in the audience who didn't play a violin or cello, or sing in the sizable choir standing at the back of Victory's enormous stage seemed a bit envious.
Wood told the audience he wanted to return to Marana — he's been here twice before — to help us in our healing process after the Jan. 8 mass shootings.
"Tucson, Arizona, is a very special place for me," he said. "We felt your pain in January and we wanted to do something special for you. We wanted to share with you tonight this wonderful talent and gifts of Tucson on this stage."
Wood has spent the past decade traveling around the country to work with student orchestras. It gives him a chance to sell his T-shirts, instructional manuals and show off his line of electric violins that he sells nationwide. But the true joy for him is watching those kids walk out of the concert with their heads a little higher, their confidence a little more certain. And that is worth more than money.
"Forget the stock market," Wood told the audience at one point Friday night. Then he pointed his bow to the student musicians: "This is what you need to invest in."
Wood and his band played a solo set in the concert's second half, drawing from his half dozen solo albums. His two-decade music career also includes being one of the original members of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.
In addition to his Electriy Your Strings programs, Wood also crafts electric violins and the Cobra electric cello. Locally, they are sold at Music & Arts, 8320 N. Thornydale Road.
