On December 16, the Harriton music department gave its second concert, with over 120 band and orchestra students playing a multitude of melodies to round off their concert season.

Conducted by Mr. Joseph, the concert band played three songs. As Mr. Joseph noted, “Clarinet Escapade,” their second selection, was “not exactly an escapade for [the clarinet section],” who worked hard on the many trilling runs in the song.

Next, the chamber ensemble took the stage. Without any conductor, the group of ten strings musicians skillfully performed a movement of Franz Schubert’s “String Quartet No. 14, D. 810.” The five violinists were Isabella Egawa, Joyce Gu, Valeria Varlashova, Portia Maidment, and Mia Rosini; on the viola were Vera Lee and Anthony Zhu; cellists were Sang-o Park, Shangen Lu, and Alex Wu.

Violist Vera Lee proudly described the piece as “crazy fast and crazy epic and crazy” and “so much fun to put together”.

She and the rest of the chamber ensemble will be performing at Maris Grove Retirement Home and Brandywine River Art Museum on December 23 and Lankenau Hospital on December 24.

After the chamber ensemble finished, it was time for Ms. Villante and the string orchestra. They took on three pieces, finishing with a fun arrangement of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

Winds and brass players joined them to form the symphony orchestra, conducted by Mr. Joseph, which played arrangements of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Overture to Nabucco” and George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris Suite.”

Mr. Joseph had remained silent throughout most of the concert except to welcome everyone and remark on “Clarinet Escapade.” However, after the “An American in Paris Suite,” he took up the microphone to speak on a number of topics – most seriously, the way the Paris terror attacks had put even more meaning and learning into the Gershwin piece.

“We had no answers, but we certainly had conversations [in class],” he said.

In a lighter mood, Mr. Joseph also listed the eight musicians Harriton will send to the District 11 Pennsylvania Music Education Association (PMEA) festival in January and recapped the music department’s trip to Disney this Halloween weekend. The workshops at Disney helped Harriton students learn “what it’s like to be a commercial musician as opposed to a concert musician,” he noted, promising a video to be shown during the spring concerts.

The final set of the night belonged to the combined band and orchestra.

“To show music is alive and kicking here at Harriton High… we like to play a piece at the end that features everybody, no matter their year or experience,” said Mr. Joseph.

The band and orchestra performed “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music, “Disney On Parade” (a medley of the “Mickey Mouse March,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah”), and lastly “God Bless America.”

The December 16 band and orchestra concert finished out the official winter concert season, but the jazz band performs at Liberty Place in Philadelphia on December 17 and the chamber ensemble will be busy on the 23rd and 24th.