Mira Costa Orchestra holds All-District Orchestra Concert

By Julia Oudiz

Staff Writer

The Mira Costa All-District Orchestra Concert, which featured musicians from Mira Costa, Manhattan Beach Middle School, and all Manhattan Beach Unified School District elementary schools, took place on February 4 at 7p.m. in the Costa auditorium.

This concert was meant to bring strings students together from all different schools and grade levels and while giving students and parents an idea of the excellence that orchestra provides. Orchestra student and freshman, Katherine Harada-Alcantara said that the concert was a success for everyone because students came together and played unified.

“It was an amazing opportunity to show the entire strings community what we have been working on and to see an incredible performance of strings players of all levels who share the same passion as [me],” Harada-Alcantara said.

Each of the sections within the concert played one piece each, individually. There were fourteen total pieces performed, including the finale, which was played in unison with all of the strings groups. According to Mira Costa Orchestra teacher, Peter Park, students practiced daily to prepare for the concert.

“It was a wonderful musical exchange between all groups of students,” Park said. “For families in the audience with younger students, it is their first exposure and enlightenment [to music]. This concert gives audience members a bigger picture of the musical excellence and the opportunities in Manhattan Beach.”

Harada-Alcantara said that the concert was exciting because she was able to play with so many other people who share the same passion as her. She said that all strings students listened to each other and were aware of what they played and how they worked together as an orchestra.

“People get to experience music with a wide range of musicians and see the evolution of musicians through the MBUSD music program,” Harada-Alcantara said.

Mira Costa’s Orchestra features several groups, such as The National Anthen Ensemble, Cadet Strings, the Philharmonic, String, Symphonic and Chamber Orchestra. The groups played songs including “Ballet Suite 4,” by Shostakovich, and “Jubilant Overture,” by Joshua Reznicow.

“[The songs] were easy to play but sounded great,” member of the Philharmonic Orchestra, freshman Tamara Tran said. “They were good choices for a full orchestra.”

There were four groups from MBMS that played in the concert, which included the Cadet Orchestra, String Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra and String Ensemble. One song played by the String Orchestra was, “Waltz of the Wicked” by Kirt N. Mosier. Elementary schools performed one song together.

“We went over all of the problems we had so we could play better,” Member of the Strings Orchestra at MBMS, 6th grade student Tazmin Owen said. “Ms. Haslop said it was our best performance and there was a big applause.”

The next event will be the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association festival for students at Mira Costa. Tran thinks that during practice, strings players needed to listen to each other play more.

“My goal as a musician is to make sure myself and my whole orchestra performs better than [we] rehearse,” Tran said. “We need to pay attention to each other’s parts so the whole piece fits together better.”