By Topstone Liang ’18
On February 25, 2016, HB and US had a joint orchestral practice and performance at HB. The performance featured a solo “Piano Concerto No. 2 II Adagio” by Felix Mendelssohn performed by Ananya Kalahasti and an orchestral piece “Okeanos” from HB. US performed movements one, two, and six, from the piece “Lincolnshire Posy” followed by “Jupiter; Bringer of Jolity from The Planets” as the combine piece for the two orchestras.
The concert began at 7:30 and stretched until around 8:00, which, in some sense, may be assumed as a short program. However, there was a vast amount of preparation and practice put into the performances. Featured performers from US included Henry Shapard, Daniel Andreini, Ben Williams, Micheal Tan, Liam O’Toole, James Bishop, Keyvon Rashidi, and Toby Chen. Featured performers from HB included Brice Bal, Madeleine Danes, Marguerite Irefin, Arielle DeVito, Hayley Hammond, Linda Conners, Ananya Kalahasti, and Joyce Li.
The environment, on the other hand, seemed to be overwhelming due to the performance being placed in the middle of HB’s very spacious Atrium. Furthermore, the amount of people that actually came to the performance far belittled the minimum requirement for a joint performance by two major high school orchestras. This of course leads to the assumptions that the pieces must have been chosen to linger and resonate better with a smaller crowd and large room. But the pieces, as according to our own Miguel Martinez, “were bad”. “They were simply too simple,” said another performer for the US orchestra. But the performance was well played and the songs, though simple, were truly brought out by the talents of the performers.
As confirmed by Mr. Singer, there will be another joint practice and performance next year here at University School instead of Hathaway Brown, which puts you, the small amount of readers, in charge of coming and listening to the orchestral performance next year featuring Zachary Keum as the principle for the cello section. Special thanks to Mr. Singer and Ms. Simons for holding this joint performance and practice this year and the years to come.
