The Fall String Concert, with all three Arcadia middle school orchestras and all four Arcadia High School orchestras was held on Friday, Oct. 15, in the Arcadia Performing Arts Center.

In a normal year, the Fall String Concert is one of the most-attended Orchestra events, and was even more so this year as the first district-wide musical event since early last year.

Safety protocols for the concert differed from previous years to prevent COVID-19 transmission. These included checking all attendees for full vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test dated within 72 hours of the concert, and attendees older than two years of age were also required to wear a face mask over their nose and mouth at all times while in the Performing Arts Center.

“We’re really grateful that the district and the school [have] been really supportive of us. I’ve had to talk to them about the COVID protocols because I was concerned, like, ‘Do we need to do social distancing,’ because that cuts our audience in half, and then, ‘How do we get everybody to be able to access our concert,’ but they’ve been very supportive,” Arcadia High School Orchestra Director Ms. Pin Chen said. “We’re all on board with making sure that health and safety are still our top priority.”

Opening the concert was the AHS Premier Orchestra directed by Ms. Chen with assistant Director Ms. Connie Tu, followed by the First Avenue Middle School Orchestra directed by Mr. Seth Murphy. The four high school orchestras alternated with each of the three middle school orchestras, with the AHS Symphony Orchestra closing out the concert.

According to Ms. Chen, the director of each of the AHS Orchestras, the theme of each orchestra was the number four; the Premier Orchestra played “Autumn from The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi and arranged by Richard Meyer, String Orchestra played a piece with four movements called “Four Pieces for a Clock Tower” by Franz Joseph Haydn and arranged by Vernon Leidig, and each of Symphony Orchestra’s pieces were played in 4 movements.

With Halloween approaching, the Premier Orchestra also played “Kitchen Poltergeist” by Thom Sharp, and the String Orchestra played “The Evil Eye and The Hideous Heart” by Alan Lee Silva, a piece based off “The Tell Tale Heart,” one of the best known gothic short stories.

The Premier Orchestra opened the concert, playing “Interlude ‘Nightfall’” by Yukiko Nishimura in addition to “Autumn from The Four Seasons” and “Kitchen Poltergeist.” 

Playing after the Premier Orchestra was the First Avenue Middle School Orchestra, directed by Mr. Murphy, who conducted three pieces: “Nightrider” by Richard Meyer, “Fantasy on a Japanese Folk Song” by Bran Balmages, and “River City Variations” by Robert S. Frost. 

When picking the music pieces, Mr. Murphy had to keep the forwardness of the concert in mind, especially because some players were still learning how to play their instrument or had just switched to a new instrument in August. 

“I had to be sympathetic to the fact that there’s going to be some kids that are going to get really bored if I choose something really easy, and there’s also going to be some kids that get really overwhelmed if I pick anything that’s too hard,” he said.

The pandemic overlaid another layer of difficulty for him as a music director.

“My job – I felt, last year – was keeping them pumped up and reminding them that this isn’t forever, and one day we’re going to be able to sit down together and play,” he recounted. “It was literally the most challenging educational experience I ever went through. We definitely don’t take for granted now that ability to sit in a room and play together.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Murphy felt prepared for Friday night’s concert. 

“We definitely have got some momentum going into Friday,” he said after a full rehearsal through all the pieces during the class period on Monday. “You can feel a sense of, it’s like, an electricity – there’s this great sense of anticipation, like, it’s going to be cool, no matter what it is.”

Like the other music directors, he also anticipated high attendance. “I think it’s also really popular because people are like, ‘I can’t wait to see a live concert. It’s been so long,’” Mr. Murphy said. These parents are probably wondering, like, ‘Man, I’ve been hearing my kid play at home for a year and I haven’t heard them play for a while, so now I’m ready to hear them play together.’”

The next performance was given by the AHS String Orchestra, who played “The Gift” by William Hofeldt along with “Four Pieces for a Clock Tower” and “The Evil Eye and The Hideous Heart.”

Following that was the next middle school performance by the Dana Middle School Symphonic Strings, directed by Jeff Grable.

The first piece, “Serenade No. 9 Finale” by Mozart, arranged by Sandra Dackow, was a “faster, upbeat piece of music” that’s “very fun and lively and enjoyable to listen to,” according to Mr. Grable. 

It was followed by “Fantasia on Amazing Grace” by Elliot A. Del Borgo, a modified version of the classic piece for a “slow and lyrical” “beautiful” feel in contrast with the first piece.

The Symphonic Strings closed out their performance with the “fast, upbeat, lively” “Dance of the Tumblers” by Nicholai Rimsky-Korsakoff, arranged by Sandra Dackow. 

Mr. Grable took his students’ opinions into account when selecting the pieces, having them initially sight-read 10 initial pieces, and narrowing the choices down to the selected 3. According to him, his music choices each year depend on the unique composition of each group, which vary in advancement of the entire orchestra and specific sections from year to year; he picks pieces that highlight the strengths of each year’s orchestra. Despite the almost two years spent in the pandemic, he observed that this year’s players were still on par with past years’ players, skill-wise.

“Musically speaking, it didn’t take a lot away from them,” he said. Aside from rearranging the orchestra room multiple times past few months after returning to in-person school, Mr. Grable said that the pandemic generally hasn’t impacted Orchestra at Dana Middle School much, although he does say that his role as a conductor has shifted to give more agency to the student. 

Like Mr. Murphy, Mr. Grable eagerly anticipated the concert. 

“I’m just excited to see the performance live because things kind of change in a new place – it’s always going to sound a little different, look a little different – but I hope they rise to the challenge and perform as good as they have been in class.”

The third high school group, the AHS Concert Orchestra, performed after the Symphonic Strings. The Concert Orchestra played “Minuetto” by Giovanni Bolzoni, arranged by Merle J. Isaac, “Sinfonia: Observance of the First Commandment” by Mozart, arranged by Sandra Dackow, and “Ballade for Strings” by Lauren Keiser.

The Foothills Highlander String Orchestra was the last middle school performance at the concert, playing “Dances of Dido” by Henry Purcell and arranged by Zunic, “La Rejouissance, Sarabanda, and Gigue” by G.P. Telemann and arranged by Robert D. McCashin, and “Lijiang River Landscape,” a traditional Chinese folk song arranged by Albert Wang. 

Like Mr. Murphy, director Karl Morton selected the pieces with the players’ middle school experience in mind. “Early in the year I choose some pieces that would make a good program, that are not too challenging for the group and that will be able to be refined a little before we have to present them in public.”

According to Mr. Morton, the Highlander String Orchestra shrank during the pandemic to 50 students, and he expects that it will take several years to build back up to the normal 75 to 80 students. 

“On the positive side, I think everyone was as happy to be back as I am and looking forward to playing our instruments every day. We take it for granted a little bit less than we might have two years ago.”

Mr. Morton’s usual excitement for the Fall String Concert every year, as his first performance of the school year, was further highlighted by the pandemic. “I’m looking forward to presenting our first concert in one and a half years! That was quite an accomplishment regardless of how well everything goes or if there are a few more mistakes than in a normal year, that won’t matter.”

Closing out the concert was the final high school group, the AHS Symphony Orchestra, with the four-movement pieces “The Red Pony” and “Suite for Strings.”

Shreya Jampana, a senior and a player in the Symphony Orchestra, echoed the challenges faced by the middle school music directors. 

“In class, when you’re playing, the melody is distributed between different groups…and all that collaboration causes you to balance how loud you play and…how you do all the intricacies,” she said. “All of that was basically lost last year. There was no interaction with other instruments.” 

As a violin player, she encountered another challenge after coming back to play with others. “My mask keeps riding up because I’m a violinist, so my violin is right where my neck is and [it] sometimes pushes my mask up, but I’m fine with that now.”

Nevertheless, she looked forward to playing in the first concert in over one and a half years. 

“One thing I’m looking forward to was actually performing because I haven’t performed in a whole orchestra setting on the PAC stage since mid-sophomore year.” She enjoyed this year’s selected pieces, as well. “I personally like playing very fast, exciting stuff…There’s this one part in the first movement that’s really fun and exciting to play. It’s super fast – it’s like a bunch of 16th notes – which was pretty fun.”

Like Jampana, AHS Orchestra Director Pin Chen was excited for the concert, and appreciates being back in person this year.

“Pandemic was AWFUL,” she laughed. “Over Zoom, you can’t even get two people to clap at the same time…so, essentially, in a class of 60 kids, what I can fix in 5 seconds here live, would take 60 times as long on pandemic era because I would have to listen to each kid one at a time.”

She spent the pandemic watching and listening to student recordings of themselves playing, and even arranged for a virtual concert composed of combining individual recordings of the students. The concert involved taking videos of all the players, extracting audio files and cleaning up background noise, and finally editing and syncing the videos up into a cohesive performance—a laborious process.

“While it’s fun to watch, it’s not fun to work on,” she said. The first time, looking at it, and watching it come together, it’s kind of amazing. And then after a while we’re like, ‘Okay, yeah, we’re going to keep learning,’ and I wanted them to still have a final product.’ It’s actually fun to really rehearse together, because you get to communicate with each other, musically. So we’ve very happy to be back.”

All in all, Ms. Chen was excited for the concert, and anticipated that the students – and audience – felt the same way.

“We’re really grateful that the district and the school has been really supportive of us,” Ms. Chen said. “I’ve had to talk to them about the COVID-19 protocols because I was concerned, like, ‘Do we need to do social distancing,’ because that cuts our audience in half, and then, ‘How do we get everybody to be able to access our concert,’ but they’ve been very supportive. A lot of people are really excited to come back. So, we can-not wait.”