On Monday, March 11th SWHS’s Chamber Orchestra attended the Lydian Festival at Central Connecticut State University. At the field trip, there were judges that helped the high school music groups perfect their music. However, the clinic may have been the main reason for them to be at this University, but the students in Chamber also enjoyed hanging out with their classmates and listening to the other groups.

Although most of the students that attended the field trip were in Chamber Orchestra, the piece that the group played for the adjudicators, ‘Sinfonia Concertante’ by Mozart, included parts for two wind instruments. Therefore, there were three students from South Windsor’s Wind Ensemble that joined orchestra on the trip; two french horn players and one oboist. Oboe player, Megan LeMay, mentioned that she enjoyed the field trip because “I got to hang out with my friends in orchestra who I don’t really get to see often.” Not only did the song feature some wind instruments, but it featured two soloists. The two soloists were senior, Gabe Galley, and junior, Taylor Chen. Even though Galley was the only soloist that went on the trip, everything still worked out during the clinic. Adjudicators, Dr. D’Addio and Dr. Ribchinsky worked really well with Chamber and helped them improve the performance of Mozart’s piece. The clinic was the main part of the trip, but there was still much more that the group did at CCSU. Here’s a summary of the field trip as a whole.

To start off their trip, Chamber Orchestra left school during third period at approximately at 9:30am. After about a half hour bus ride, they arrived at CCSU and put all of their stuff, including instruments and backpacks, into one of the warm up rooms in Welte Hall. While waiting for their next direction, the students messed around; playing piano, hanging out, and just having conversations with each other. Soon after, they went to where the clinic was being held and watched orchestral groups play for the adjudicators. Once the clock hit eleven, all of the students in Chamber walked to ‘Tony’s Pizza’ and had lunch. The students had a good time hanging out, eating pizza, and fooling around at this restaurant. Following lunch, the students went back to the warm up room to warm up their instruments and once again, just have fun. At this moment, people were playing music on the piano, warming up their instruments, playing other people’s instruments, and many other things. After a little while, Fausel, the orchestra teacher at SWHS, told everyone to grab their belongings and head back to where the clinic was being held. The group listened to the orchestras that were performing at the clinic before them, waiting for their turn to go up. Finally, it was 1:00pm when Chamber orchestra went on. They started off by playing through their song, ‘Sinfonia Concertante’ by Mozart. Then the adjudicators told them what they should do to improve the song so that it could sound better. Throughout the clinic the two adjudicators made suggestions on what the group could do to the song so that it would be just how Mozart wanted it to be. Once Chamber’s part of the clinic ended, the group gathered all of their things and left the University, getting back to SWHS around 2:30pm.

Overall, the students enjoyed the fact that the field trip was very laid back and fun. Junior, Jia Yazon, stated that her favorite part was that “It was mostly just being able to hang around with the people in my class in context not involving orchestra? Like of course the clinic itself was fun, but my favorite part was just being able to interact in a different setting than usual.” Another student, Alexa Shepardson said that “Going out to get pizza with everyone was my favorite, because we’re all so close to each other. It was nice to take a break from rehearsing and hang out for a little bit.” All in all, you can see Chamber Orchestra perform ‘Sinfonia Concertante’ and the rest of their songs together at the orchestra concert on May 9th and at their competition in Boston on April 26th to 28th.