HEAVY METAL FUSION

Pacific Heavy Metal Combines Classical Music With Rockstar Energy

Imagine the big boom of drums, a fast melody played on guitar, a steady bass keeping time, and heavy metal vocals playing covers of your favorite songs. It may sound like a scene you’d run into at a bar on a Saturday night, but then add in a 30-50-member chamber orchestra. Now you have something special.

Pacific Heavy Ensemble is a heavy metal orchestra run out of University of the Pacific. It started in 2018, the brainchild of students Peter Altamura and Brandon Lindner. “We wanted to create something in the UOP conservatory that was different than anything that had come before,” Peter says of the collaboration, which plays most heavy metal covers in Faye Spanos Concert Hall and the DeRosa Center Ballroom. “The next semester we recruited 40 students to play in the ensemble and played a small ‘test’ show a couple months later.”

After Peter graduated in 2022, he came back to UOP as a visiting lecturer and

 BY NORA HESTON TARTE

faculty advisor of Pacific Heavy Metal. While three players took over the studentrun program—Drummer Jon Herbers, Guitarist Logan Adams, and Flutist Marc Anderson—Peter still has a heavy hand on the production ‘s administrative side.

“We mostly play covers, but at the last concert we played two of my original songs that I wrote for my senior project,” Peter shares. “We’re here to have fun, perform thrilling concerts in a conservatory setting, spread the influence of metal and its many facets, deter stereotypes within the genre, and give the players and audience an experience like no other.”

Peter best compares the group to Metallica with the SF Symphony or The Trans-Siberian Orchestra. While the focus is on the quality of the music, the group also strives to provide an experience not unlike a high-profile concert. “We have rival attendance to concerts put on by the school administration with popular artists,” he says, describing the sound as “a fusion of classical style playing in tandem with heavy, loud, drums and guitars, and crazy sounding vocals.”

Thanks to a sound rental company that mics every instrument, sets up big speakers, and mixes 60+ microphones with audio engineers that perform front of house sound for major touring artists, Pacific Heavy Metal’s last concert reached sound levels of a medium-sized rock concert, hitting 110 decibels. “It’s a massive effort, but the result is a loud, great sounding experience for the audience and the players.”