End of School Year Concerts

It was a little bittersweet going to June's last orchestra concert because she had already decided not to take orchestra the following year. She was not getting what she wanted out of it. However, she was planning on joining the Utah Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra or UVYSO so there will still be beautiful violin music to look forward to.

June was 3rd chair most of the year, even though she was a Sophomore. Here she is ready to play.

Here is the whole orchestra conducted by Shelby Hornback. Shelby was the only reason June stayed in orchestra second semester. She did a great job, but only got to conduct part of the time.

The theme for the end of year was video games. (The Seniors got to pick the theme) My favorite song was the theme from Kingdom Hearts. It was gorgeous. But I didn't record that one. :( However, this one wasn't too bad. It is the theme from Zelda.

The orchestra also combined with the wind symphony. It is fun to hear them all play together. Please notice the lovely decorations on the stage. It was the band teacher's 25 year anniversary.

That actually made the performance so much longer. They did a celebration for Mr. Bowman and invited former students to speak about him and do their own solos. It took forever. There was one guy who did a drum solo that was spectacular, but the rest of the time I just wanted it to end.

Finally they reached the close of all the extra fanfare and gave the band teacher a new chair. That's actually a really useful gift. Good job band peeps.

Yay to all of us who made it through the whole evening. And good job June!

Next up—the end of year band concert at the Junior High. This one was really fun because both Ivory and Robyn were playing. Here is Ivory on a marimba. She enjoyed percussion but not enough to take it the following year. She is more involved in choir and as long as she keeps up her musical talents, I don't care where she uses them.

Listen to this fun beginning band play the theme from Star Wars. Ivory is on the snare drum. She does a great job.

Robyn did a lot of crash cymbals during her performances. She got really good at holding those heavy cymbals. The symphonic band played a fairly difficult piece called Rolling Thunder. Listen for those cymbals.

The percussion number is always a favorite of mine. Robyn and Ivory were up front. I wonder how people can tell they are sisters?

And the Jazz Band of course. I'll add some of their music in the 9th grade graduation post, so just a picture here. Robyn did great on piano.

Each year at the last performance, someone gets flowers for Mrs. Taylor. How do they decide who does that? This year, I thought she would like something besides flowers. I got the kids organized and they all chipped in money and we got her a very  nice gift card to the mall. When I told another mom about it, she said, "That is a great idea, and you can give it to her... with some flowers." What's with the flowers? They just die. But I was dutiful and we got her both.

Robyn got her own award too. Every last concert, Mrs. Taylor takes the opportunity to give out awards to dedicated students. In percussion, she has a outstanding award for each grade level. Robyn won the 9th grade award and that makes three years in a row that she got it. She always worked so hard and I think she earned it every year. She was the percussion mom. She would make sure people were on task and help out the younger students. I think she will have fond memories of her Junior High years in percussion.

I think we got them all. Choir (in a previous post), Orchestra, and Band. May is always busy with concerts, but I enjoy seeing how the kids have developed over the year.