This page is home to our Fall 2020 Orchestra Program Virtual Showcase. As I’m sure you know, this has undoubtedly been the most unusual semester in the history of modern public education. We began the semester with nearly two months of remote learning, then shifted to hybrid learning for seven weeks, and ended with three weeks of remote between Thanksgiving and Winter Break. Through this all, the students in the FHS Music Department showed incredible resilience, working within challenging COVID guidelines and despite the odds, progressing in their musicianship and artistry.

This gallery is a showcase of some of the work the Orchestra Program did this semester. It is not a complete representation, as some students wanted to re-record their pieces after Winter Break. If there’s one thing that COVID has taught us, it’s how to be flexible, and thus progress on the music we’ve been learning did not feel limited to this semester.

The Chamber Orchestra Club pieces took place entirely in after-school rehearsals. The two audio-only recordings took place during the school day, with the two “cohorts” of our hybrid learning recording separately. This experience represented a professional-level way of recording, wherein each musician has headphones in and is recording along with a backing track. Most of our young artists had never done this before, and they thoroughly enjoyed this unique opportunity to record and present their learning in a new way. Angie wanted to pursue a solo song, and so she recorded “Las Mañanitas” for us (in the Videos section). Finally, Orchestra Program Welcome Video was presented to our incoming freshman at Thunder Valley K8 and Coal Ridge Middle School. We had planned a collaboration with them, but due to the return to remote learning, that wasn’t possible. Keep your eye out for that collaboration video, along with many more performances, to come in the Spring!