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March 29, 2024 6:19 am
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School Orchestras Perform At Spring Festivals

By MAGGIE MCMURRAY

Moapa Valley Progress

The MVHS Symphonic Orchestra takes a moment for a photo outside of UNLV’s Ham Hall following their performance at the annual Music Festival.

The Moapa Valley High School Symphonic Orchestra as well as the Mack Lyon Middle School Advanced Orchestra both traveled to UNLV last week to perform at the Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall in their annual Spring Music Festivals. The two groups performed in front of a panel of judges who ranked their performances from 1 to 5, with a 1 being a Superior rating.

After their performances, each orchestra also had a short clinic with one of the judges who helped them work on fine-tuning their performance and ironing out small details the judge felt the orchestra could improve upon.

The MVHS Symphonic Orchestra played on Friday, March 10. The Symphonic Orchestra is made primarily of string players, but also incorporates woodwinds and percussion for a fuller, richer sound.
Delgadillo said that she was worried about how the group would do that day. She had to schedule them on the same day as all the larger school and magnet school programs due to sports conficts. So she knew the judging would be harder.

The symphony performed three pieces that included Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto, arranged by Isaac; Rhosymedre by Vaughn Williams, arranged by Foster; and Procession of the Sandar, by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, arranged by Isaac.

The Mack Lyon Middle School Advanced Orchestra performed at an annual Music Festival on Tuesday, March 7.

The judges awarded the group an overall score of 2+. Delgadillo felt that the scores should have been higher. But with the extremely high level of competition that day, she was very proud of her students.
“I am pleased with how they did,” Delgadillo said. “They really played with a Superior quality and one of our judges agreed with me. Their effort really meant a lot to me.”

After the performance, the symphony worked with a clinician on two of their pieces correcting small errors and making adjustments.
“Our clinician was impressed with our group and said he felt we were really moving to the next level, which I agree with,” Delgadillo said. “We are a very young group with only four seniors and we are getting better all the time.”

Sophomore cellist Reanna Lyon admitted being nervous playing in the venue. “But I feel like we did a great job and learned a lot,” she said. “One of my favorite sayings that Mrs. Delgadillo says is, ‘You are only as strong as your weakest player’ and I feel it really inspired all of us to practice and work hard.”
The Lyon Middle School orchestra, under the direction of Walter White, made its festival appearance earlier in the week on Tuesday, March 7.

This year White felt that he had one of the best orchestras he has worked with at the school. As such, he chose pieces that challenged the orchestra and caused them to stretch and grow.
“I could have picked easy pieces that we would easily have scored well on,” White said. “But then we would have wasted months practicing songs that taught us nothing.”
Instead, because of what he felt were the superior abilities of his students, he chose pieces that would leave the orchestra better and more advanced than when they started.

White was very pleased with how his young students worked and performed their pieces. “I am very proud of these kids,” he said. “They worked very hard and although we have played our pieces better, the kids did a great job at festival. I have a great bunch of kids and I’m proud of their efforts.”

Unfortunately, the judges’ scores for the orchestra came in significantly lower than White had hoped.
“I was disappointed,” White said. “They were playing music that really stretched them and they did well with it. There must have been something we did that the judges just didn’t like.”

After the performance, their clinician spent extra time with them teaching the kids how to recognize, interpret, and act upon the non-verbal cues they receive from their conductor.
“There is something really special about this group of kids,” White said. “They are extremely talented and work hard. I am really going to miss most of them next year as they graduate and move up to the high school.”

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