Every now and then, the orchestra and the band at Thomas Dale High School have combined for special performances, but they'd never done it for a grade until last week.
The school fielded a full symphony orchestra of almost 90 musicians Thursday for the District 3 Orchestra Festival, which continued through Friday for everyone else at the Matoaca Middle School East Campus. The District 3 Band Festival continued yesterday from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at L.C. Bird High School.
Since a full orchestra was too big for the festival stage, the judges listened to a performance in the Thomas Dale auditorium before the rest of the festival began.
"That's remarkably unusual for a high school" to have a full symphony orchestra, said David Greennagel, board member of the Virginia Music Educators Association. "It takes a remarkable amount of coordination. To me, it would indicate that something very special is happening."
The judges agreed, giving the orchestra superior ratings on each of the prepared selections and on sight-reading a piece they'd never seen until they were handed it on stage.
Playing with everything from violins to clarinets requires meshing schedules of students in a variety of classes. As a result, the entire orchestra had only two rehearsals before performing for the judges.
Thomas Dale has an advantage to getting good musicians because it's the home of Chesterfield's Specialty Center for the Arts, but about two-thirds of the musicians on stage were from the school's general population, said orchestra director Christopher Johnston.
The program offered "Intermezzo" from "Cavalliera Rusticana" by Pietro Mascagni, which was conducted by student Rebecca Capel; "Variations on a Shaker Melody" from "Appalachian Spring" by Aaron Copland, conducted by band director Steven Barton; and "Russian Sailor's Dance" by Reinhold Gliere, conducted by Johnston.
Members of the band were exposed to more than new notes.
"If all they do is band literature, they're missing a major portion of what's there," Barton said. "The symphony orchestra has had such great music written for it for hundreds of years."
Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or kcalos@timesdispatch.com.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement