Hi All!

Did you go to the PAC last night for the Oregon High School orchestra concert?  I did and was blown away by the skill level of students.  If you missed out on the concert, let me fill you in on what happened.  Each class, freshmen through senior, played 2-3 songs.  For each grouping, there was first a traditional classical music piece played and then in contrast, their last piece was a modern pop music song from the 20th Century.  This ranged from Led Zeppelin to the Beach Boys. 

Freshmen started out the evening with their first performance of their high school career playing a piece that was written for the Oregon High School!  It was composed by Eric Ewazen after being commissioned by a grant from the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission.  He used an image from the late 1800's of a summertime community picnic in Oregon, Wisconsin.  They then moved on to "Stairway to Heaven".  I'm sure the kids really enjoyed being able to play a piece that was actually written for their school and then getting to mix some rock-n-roll in with it, was probably like icing on a cake. YUM!  Keep up the good work Class of 2014!

Class of 2013 sophomores followed with their two classical pieces from Dello Joio followed by Eric Clapton's "Layla".  While I enjoyed all the performances that night, this one really stood out.  The kids conducted themselves, sans Ms. Sanyer, with Zach Petrie on the electric guitar, Danielle Steinberg on the electric violin, Lucus Tolly on the piano, Cordel Weber playing bass and Andrew Jend on drums.  Seriously, they nailed it.  What a lot of fun that class must have had putting it all together.  I hope to see more of this level of creative efforts in the future.  Orchestra is so much more then just Bach or Brahms as the sophomores made quite clear in last night's performance.

Oregon's Junior class prepared pieces from Ernest Bloch and the Beach Boys!  What an unlikely combination.  While it appears as though their class is a bit smaller than the sophomores, they put all their heart into their efforts.  We all enjoyed their performance and maybe even a trip down memory lane as they finished up the the Beach Boys.  They rocked the harmonies on that one.

Seniors finished out the evening's performance with a challenging piece by Hindemith followed by the Beatles "Elanor Rigby".  Their eight years of orchestra has really paid off in their willingness to take on such a challenging classical piece while expressing their enjoyment of performing a popular contemporary pop classic.  I think while we all enjoyed the Hindemith piece, it was the Beatles that we were all humming to as we walked out the door at the end of the concert.

On the drive home with my OHS orchestra student, dashingly dressed in black, he expressed how much fun his class had in prepping and performing their pieces that evening.  He was frustrated that the start of "Layla" didn't quite go the way they had planned but as I pointed out to him, we parents, in the audience, didn't know and the overall performance had us all rocking a bit in our seats. 

My praise goes out to all the brave kids willing to take on this challenge of comparing and contrasting "classical" music with contemporary popular music.  There was something for everyone to enjoy and keep us coming back for more.  Thank you to Ms. Leyla Sanyer for being so creative and for encouraging the students to not only develop an understanding of different types of music, but also showing them that you can jump out of the box into other genres and still find connections.  Well done!! 

Can't wait for the next concert!

Humbly Yours,

Renée Frank