Rachel had a fun day with her cello for April fools day. ACMA (Arts & Communication Magnet Academy) hosted the First Annual Beaverton School District Classical Orchestra Festival. She got to spend the day with 6 orchestras. They practiced and had sectionals. This was a good experieance considering the Meadow Park Middle School's orchestra only has 5 members. We enjoyed their performance that evening in ACMA's new auditorium. Each orchestra played a couple numbers, then they combined for 3. It was a nice evening.
Here is a picture of the whole group. Not too good of a picture, but the only one I took. Rachel is the one sitting on the outside of the last row in front of the bass wearing black pants and white blouse.
I have spent too many hours trying to upload the video- so I give up. Sorry.
Here it is at the hall in lights!
Here she is on stage. Her group played three songs: Symphony No. 5 in B-flat Major by Franz Schubert, Amedeus! (from Symphony No. 25) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Spirit of Freedom by Tracey R. Rush.
They sounded wonderful! Brian, Rachel, & I enjoyed it from our balcony seats. (Kevin and Jessica were at winter percussion practice.)
Melissa also spent many hours after school practicing with the Pit Orchestra for Westview High School's production of Guys & Dolls. They had performances on two weekends: March 4,5,& 6; and March 11, 12, & 13. She said it was strange being under the stage. She never did get to actually see the show- but knew most of the lines! Here she is in the pit- the stage floor was painted purple.
Here is what it looked like above for the grand finale:
It is tradition for the orchestra to dress up for the final Friday performance and to come on stage to take a bow. Unfortunately that was the night of Melissa's MYS concert so she missed it. Here she is after her last performance on the 13th:
Melissa played her trumpet in the Jazz Band playing "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch". She played in a trumpet trio on mutes for part of it. In the Advanced Band she played Celtic Air and Dance, and Evil Ways. It was a very nice concert.
The big finale number was Jingle bells, which both groups played together. It sounded great as Rachel played the melody, and Melissa played a ornamental part on top (along with the other players too of course).
The school choirs performed performed after the orchestra. I hear they were good, however Grandma, Jennifer, and I didn't stay and headed off to the RS Enrichment Christmas party. We made it just in time. We missed the appetizers and dinner but got there as they were serving dessert. As we sat down the High Priest servers brought us in dinner. It was tastey! We had time to eat before the program started. It was a program titled "Sounds of Christmas". It had narration, music numbers, and slides. It was beautiful.