Inspiration comes in many places for musicians. For the new members of the school’s orchestra, inspiration recently came with a collaboration with the joint performance with the Lynbrook High School Chamber Orchestra, which took place in the McAfee Center on Oct. 29.
“The exchange concert every year is a great outlet for students to share with another school,” music director Michael Boitz said. “By adding an orchestra, it makes good interaction.”
Being able to watch another school perform gave students a chance to learn from others.
“My favorite part was meeting new people,” junior violinist Lisa Asai said. “During dinner, which is made by the moms, we talk to the people from Lynbrook as we eat with them in the cafeteria.”
Besides being more social, students can learn from watching their peers.
“It was a good experience for the new people in our orchestra because they have never played with a different school before,” junior violist Carolynn Choi said. “By playing with another group, they could see the differences between the two.”
There were a variety of pieces performed, which ranged from Respighi and Bloch to Led Zeppelin.
The SHS orchestra rehearsed every Tuesday to prepare. At the event, the two schools performed separately.
“We played different genres like rock and classical, which made the performance interesting,” said Choi.
In addition, the performance featured piano soloist Emily Hsu, a 2001 graduate and full-time choir accompanist who played Tchaikovsky’s mvt. IV Finale.
“Overall, considering how much time we sacrifice and how hard we work,” Asai said, “I thought we played very well as a group and as an audience I thought we were respectful too.”
The same weekend, there was a marching band state competition at Fresno High School on Saturday, Oct. 30.
Saratoga placed 3rd in its division overall, with a score of 79.
“We did well in our music category, but we didn’t do very well in the marching aspect,” junior flutist Matthew Opatrny said. “The field was a college field and the hash marks confused people, and some based their marching off the wrong hashes, messing up the forms.”
This is the first time the marching band incorporated props into their performance.
“We got a higher score in general because the judges actually understood what we were doing,” Opatrny said. “There were ramps for us to march on and scaffolding for the guard to go up on. Everything was more exciting because it popped.”