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On May 24th our orchestras took part in the Heritage Festival International Competition held in Toronto Canada. Our orchestra was competing with other orchestras, bands, and chorales from eight different states and two Canadian provinces. Scores were given on a 100-point basis, and awards were given for 91-100 (Gold), 81-90 (Silver), and 71-80 (Bronze). Our orchestras took top honors in the event, including two Gold ratings (Symphony and Chamber) and a Silver rating (Classical), the Outstanding Program Award for the highest score average in two ensembles, and the Sweepstakes Award for the highest score average in three ensembles. Below is a list of our program from the competition. All together, this makes the Boardman High School Orchestras the best high school music program in the country for eight years running. Kinda cool, eh?
BHS Symphony Orchestra:
BHS Chamber Orchestra:
BHS Classical Orchestra:
That's our orchestra up there. Big, eh? Yeah, it's a rather large son-of-a-gun. 208 members, to be exact. Can you imagine a 208-piece orchestra?...jeez. That's why the program is split into four seperate orchestras. Pictured above is the Symphony Orchestra. They play professional caliber music by some of the big name composers, such as Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and Holst, just to name a few. The top players of the Symphony Orchestra form a seperate group known as the Chamber Orchestra. Their repertoire consists of quartets and other pieces composed for smaller groups of strings. If you take what's left of Symphony after Chamber is cut out and add it to the String Technique Class, you get Classical Orchestra. They play music that is more towards the high school level, rather than the professional pieces that the Symphony plays. And last, but certainly not least, the String Technique Class is composed of students that are not a member of Symphony. The purpose of this class is to help the members to improve upon their technique to prepare them for the difficult music played in Symphony Orchestra. That's about it. Starting next year, because of the increasing size of our program, String Technique Class will be eliminated and the Classical Orchestra will be comprised of those not in Symphony and moved to a new period. Talk about confusing...I barely understand it. More on that as it happens. For more info on our orchestra, visit the official page of the BHS Orchestra, also designed by me, by clicking on the orchestra.
Carol Clark
Frank Dispenza
Rick Smrek
Jupiter by Holst
The 4th Movement of the New World Symphony by Dvorak
Danse Bacchanale by Saint-Seans
The 3rd Movement of the Vivaldi Concerto Grosso in D Minor
The 1st Movement of the Dvorak String Serenade
Sentimental Saraband by B. Britten
Danza by R. Smith
Ancient Ritual by Del Borgo
Slava by Rimsky-Korsakov
This is the empty space where our new auditorium will soon be! I'll have progressive pictures of the construction as I take 'em!!
So, you look at this and you ask yourself "What is Auditorium 2000?" Well, when my high school was built in 1969, there wasn't enough money to add an auditorium in. As a result, our orchestra, band, and chorale have been performing at the Auditorium at Center Middle School. However, aside from the inconvience of having to rent a truck to go over there and set up and then getting managers out of school to actually set up, our orchestra, band, and chorale don't fit on that stage. As a result, we are building this 1600 seat auditorium. Read more about this here. Incidently, that gal on the front of the pamphlet is my good friend Molly (and let me tell you...they didn't ask her to do that and she's pissed. But she's really famous around here now) Her homepage is here so visit cuz it's cool...and she's "famous." hehe...