From a music program only ten years old, today’s students in Lowell High School Symphonic Orchestra compete for top honors at State Festival.
The Lowell Area Schools orchestra program has grown from handful of students ten years ago to nearly 300 today. Experience the thrill along with Symphonic Orchestra students and director Wendy Tenny as they compete for top honors at the State Festival of the Michigan State Band and Orchestra Association.
“When I walk out onto stage I’m thinking that I better play everything right,” says Charlotte, a senior who plays the violin. “I’ve got to get that run or that trill correctly. I have to do everything that I possibly can to sound the best that I possibly can.”
“The excellence of the program draws people in,” says violin player Daniele, a senior who remembers when the program was just beginning to grow. “There were two classes when I was in sixth grade, and now we have two full high school orchestras,” she says.
“I try to inspire [the students] not just in music, but to have a passion for everything they do in life, to perform their best best, to perform well, “ says Wendy Tenny, who heads up the orchestra program for the school district in western Michigan. “And I’m hoping that will carry them through college and their careers and their family life.”
Includes full preview performances of “The Spanish Dance,” by Dimitri Shostakovich, “Ase's Death,” by Edvard Grieg and “The Capriol Suite,” by Peter Warlock, recorded in WKAR Studio A at Michigan State University. Hosted by WKAR’s Peter Whorf.
The Forte Extra (online only) is Mattachins ("Sword Dance"), the third movement from “The Capriol Suite,” by Peter Warlock.
Watch it now at video.wkar.org
EXTRA:Capriol Suite | Lowell High School Symphonic Orchestra
Ep. 103 first air 10/18/14