“I just did the best I could. It was a real challenge. I still have the costume, but I will never use it again for a concert. ” Benoit and other community members, along with UL music students, combine costumes and orchestral music again at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Angelle Hall Auditorium. Musicians will be in Halloween disguises and audience members are encouraged to wear costumes as well.

Michael Blaney will lead the orchestra through renditions of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, Holst’s Mars , from The Planets and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. Shawn Roy and the UL Opera Workshop, along with Lafayette Ballet Theatre, will make guest appearances. Blaney said audience members can expect an evening of fun. “The fun and the tough part about it is I don’t want to do the same concert every year,” said Blaney, who started the concert in 1996.

“It would be easy to play the same standard, orchestral pieces that are associated with Halloween. “But we try to change it up every year with different music and different skits. When you have good stuff, people expect you to have something just as good the next year.” Blaney’s orchestra has 65 members with a little more than 40 being UL music students. The rest are community members, like Benoit. Some have been participating in the symphony since the 1950s and earlier.

Blaney said those seasoned players have helped young students develop their talents. Benoit, who first joined the symphony as an elementary school student in 1956, said his participation is a way of giving back to the university. Plus, he still has fun at the Halloween contest - just not as Bugs Bunny. “I think everybody enjoys it,” said Benoit. “Most concerts are so serious. We are serious about the music. We don’t let up on trying to play the music as absolutely well as we can.