Orchestra festival comes to Hickory High School Friday
Feb. 8—HERMITAGE — Students from across western Pennsylvania will showcase their musical talents this evening, when the PMEA Orchestra Festival comes to a close at Hickory High School.
The three-day orchestra festival, organized by the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association, began Wednesday and will culminate in a concert at 7 p.m. in the Hickory High School Auditorium.
Tickets for the concert cost $5 and can be purchased at the door, said Julie Freeman Kerr, a music teacher at the Hermitage School District and host director for the festival.
The festival at Hickory High School includes more than 130 students from 30 school districts in PMEA districts 2, 3 and 5. District 5 alone includes Mercer, Butler, Beaver and Lawrence counties, Kerr said.
"Auditions and everything started Wednesday, and then those kids are playing for two full days," Kerr said. "They get breaks at certain times, but on Thursday and Friday, they're playing for about 12 hours each by the time it's over."
Serving as the festival's guest conductor is Dr. Jungho Kim, the former director of orchestra at Kent State University and current director of orchestra at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Kerr said some of the musical pieces performed — including Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5 and No. 6, as well as Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 finale — should be familiar to audiences.
The students will also perform Soar!, a piece written in 2015 by composer Todd Goodman. Goodman will visit the concert Friday.
"With so many of the pieces we perform, the composers behind them like Brahms have been gone a long time. But in this case, the students can actually meet and talk with the composer," Kerr said.
Ronald Wang, a senior from Indiana Area School District, was among the students participating in the festival.
As violin section leader, Wang's duties included not just performing but helping other students in the section with certain issues, such as tuning instruments.
Even though many of the students in the festival were playing together for the first time, Wang said the students became more cohesive as the rehearsals continued.
"It is really cool, getting to perform with so many other musicians," Wang said.
Viola player Maddie Morris, a sophomore at Hickory High School, said the festival was the first time she had performed in the PMEA Orchestra Festival.
Meanwhile, French horn player Abigail Christy, a senior at the Mercer Area School District, had previously performed with other local orchestras throughout the county.
However, both Morris and Christy agreed that the PMEA Orchestra Festival was a unique and rewarding experience.
"The people performing here are very advanced compared to what you would normally have in a normal high school, and everyone wants to be here," Morris said.
The three students also agreed that they enjoyed learning from Kim, with Wang describing the guest conductor as "very professional" while Morris said Kim was humorous and approachable with the students.
"He just wants us to improve, and even if we get pretty good at a piece, he'll come up with a new way of approaching it," Christy said of Kim.
After the district-level concert Friday, participating students will have the potential to advance to the regional-level festival then to the state-level festival in mid-April, Kerr said.
"These students get that experience of playing alongside other students, and they can take that experience back and become leaders in their schools' music programs," Kerr said.
Like David L. Dye on Facebook or email him at ddye@sharonherald.com.
