This piece was submitted by Evie Reed (10, J&C)

The Youth Performing Arts School (YPAS) orchestra department will hold their first performance of the year on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 7. The concert will be held at the Main Stage Theater located at YPAS, and admission is free.

“It will be a fairly short, high quality, free concert,” YPAS orchestra conductor of six years, Daniel Whisler, said.

The performance

There are a total of three orchestra groups playing at the concert: Manual Concert Orchestra (MCO), YPAS Philharmonia, and Chamber Strings. Each group will take the stage during the night and will offer a wide variety of music for the audience to enjoy.

For each of the three groups, the preparation for this concert started over the summer, and the students feel very confident that the performance will not disappoint.

“It feels like we haven’t practiced a lot as a group, but, despite that, we sound really well,” Zachary Hutchinson (9, YPAS) said.

Many students, including Hutchinson and Makhtar Ndiaye (9, YPAS), emphasized how fun the concert will be for the performers and the audience members.

“[The performance] will be totally fan-tubular,” Ndiaye said.

The music

Whisler handpicked the music for the concert well in advance to prepare for this performance. He wanted to find music that would be challenging for his students as well as pieces that the audience would enjoy.

“We’ll have a lot of different eras of music represented, from early to modern, and some stuff that you’ll definitely recognize from film scores or just random commercials,” Whisler said.

For the students, the music is much different from the music that they played in middle school. They described it as enjoyable yet more difficult than what they were used to.

“It’s challenging, yet it’s fun,” Ndiaye said. He also emphasized that he “absolutely” enjoys the music. 

“I can almost guarantee that there will be at least one tune that you’ll recognize. And if not, then you’ll hopefully be humming it by the end,” Whisler said.