Oxford School District orchestra holds end-of-year concert May 14

    The Oxford School District held its end-of-year orchestra concert May 14 at Nutt Auditorium on the Ole Miss campus. I thought they gave a fine performance.
    For the past several years I tried to record some of my daughter's orchestra concerts. Obviously there are a lot more children involved than just my daughter.
    I didn't take my video camera to the Christmas 2013 concert, which featured some choral music as well as orchestra tunes. I was simply blown away by five kids performing "Mary Did You Know" in a street-singing style. I called my friend Ed Meek and asked him to have someone from HottyToddy.com film these kids, and he did; and so I was able to include it on my blog.
    In past years I've recorded snippets of songs. Last year I made a separate video for each song. One of the things that I find interesting is the obvious improvement that takes place as these children get older.
    This year I decided to just record the entire performance of each group in full, without any editing. I did miss the first song performed by the high school, Furiant, by Elliot Del Borgo, as they started player before I got the "record" button pressed. I zoomed in once on each group to try to get video of each performer; however, many were in the back and out of the view of my camera. Oh well!
    Most people won't want to watch all of these videos in their entirety. But here it is for those who might have friends or family members in the orchestra. For the general public, I strongly urge you to listen to a few snippets, anyway. Oxford is lucky to have a quality orchestra program in its schools.
    The Oxford School District Orchestra is under the instruction of Tyler Kuntz. Kuntz said the high school orchestra had to cancel its plans earlier this year to participate in a rating competition earlier this year due to inclement weather, but that the middle school participated and received outstanding marks, with almost no negative comments.
    Kuntz said he would announce in the fall the fact that he had registered the orchestra to participate in a four-day competition in St. Louis next year. The trip will include a visit to Six Flags, of course. Readers of this blog won't have to wait for the announcement.
    And now for the videos:

We enjoyed the Memphis Symphony and hope this year won't be their last

    Jinny and I took Lucy and a friend to see German Requiem performed by the Memphis Symphony at the Cannon Center in Memphis Saturday night.
    I'm really not a high-brow sort, but I scooped up a couple of cheap tickets as part of a package at the Northwest Mississippi Community Foundation's Crystal Ball last month and bought a couple more for my daughter.
    We enjoyed ourselves. The first portion was Schubert's unfinished Eighth Symphony. It lasted only 22 minutes and was wonderful. After intermission and a glass of wine was Brahm's German Requiem. This is his longest composition and lasted approximately 70 minutes, and I confess I felt towards the end it had "too many notes," as Emperor Joseph is said to have told Mozart. The performance itself was perfect and I enjoyed it; part of my problem is that I don't like sitting still for extended periods. I often watch television standing up.
    The orchestra was outstanding. The community chorus, which is made up of approximately 120 people who donate massive amounts of their time, did a great job. And the conductor, Mei-Ann Chen, looked as if she was possessed, and I mean that in a good way. She was a dynamo.
    Prior to the performance an official with the symphony got up to talk about the Memphis Symphony's financial problems. Due to really severe financial problems this will be the last year for the Memphis Symphony in it's current form. There are going to be some very major cuts and changes. In fact, the financial problems are severe enough that their major worry right now is just finishing out the season.
    In 2000 the MSO had an endowment of more than $6 million. The seriousness of the current financial situation became apparent after a new CEO was brought in last November to try to work out the organization's problems. Some hard choices are going to have to be made, but it would have been better if some of these choices had been made several years ago while the MSO still had money in the bank.
    If it should finish its season with the Sunset Symphony as part of Memphis in May -- and I'm betting it will -- the MSO will have had 196 performances over the course of the season. This includes 23 subscription concerts and 146 community engagement and educational performances. Next year's schedule, if there is one, will be much pared down.
    The Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Memphis Flyer both have had good articles on this (click the links to see the stories). The sad thing is that the MSO has been successful in taking the symphony out of the performance halls and into the schools and community -- into people's everyday lives. Much of this is likely to end.
    Lucy enjoyed the performance enough that she told us she wanted to start taking private cello lessons. She plays cello in the Oxford School Orchestra. So I'm glad the MSO was there for us. The Cannon Center downtown was a great facility, although I've read online that the Germantown Performing Arts Center has even better acoustics.
    We look forward to attending at least one more performance of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra this year. To see the remaining ticketed events for this season, click here. One event that looks interesting is the final ticketed performance of the year, a symphony made up of Rolling Stones music. I think we'll be there.
    As this might be your last chance to see the Memphis Symphony Orchestra in its current form, you might want to try to catch a performance. Your support now through ticket purchases can make a difference in what kind of symphony orchestra Memphis has next year, or if it has one at all.

Closer to home, the LOU Symphony Orchestra Winter Concert is March 3

    Of course, Memphis is 75 miles away from us Oxford folks, and while we wish them well we also want our own institutions to do well.
    The LOU Symphony Orchestra has it's Winter Concert scheduled for March 3 at the Gertrude Ford Center. Tickets are $10 and available at the box office or online. I would presume one could buy them the night of the performance at the Ford Center, but I would call first.
    The LOU Orchestra has another concert scheduled for April 14 at the Ford Center.

I lost my camcorder, but hottytoddy.com pulled through for me and shot this great video

    Back in my Ole Miss student days I was a real thorn in the side of Ed Meek, who was the head of public relations for the university. Neither of us ever had a cross word with each other, but I'm sure I irritated him no end.
    Time is a salve that heals all wounds. Since moving back to Oxford three years ago I've found that Ed and I are frequently on the same page, and I am proud to call him a friend.
    For the past couple of years I've been recording the Oxford School District orchestra concerts that my daughter has participated in and have posted them on this blog and on Youtube. Unfortunately, I have lost my video camera and wasn't able to film these year's concert. I miss my video camera.
    And it's a shame, too. It was a great concert. It was a big change from year's past. Members of the various orchestras remained in their seats on stage for the entire concert, so there was no 15-minutes of switching and tuning between the beginner, 7th & 8th grade, and high school orchestra. And the choir was invited to participate and contributed several great choral performances.
    I have a short attention span, and the concert just whizzed by. I would honestly recommend to any Oxford resident that they attend future concerts. It was top notch.
    I wish I could say the highlight of the evening was my daughter's cello playing, but it wasn't. It was the performance of a quintet which sang the modern Christmas carol, "Mary Did You Know?" in what I would call a street-singing style. I'm not predisposed to care for this type of music, but I loved it.
    I was truly saddened that I wasn't able to record this and share it on my blog. So I sent Ed Meek an email and told him about the group and asked him to see if he could get someone from his news website, hottytoddy.com to do a story and perhaps get a video of this fine group. Ed Meek and hottytoddy.com came through for me. Thank you Ed! Thank you hottytoddy.com!
    These students arranged this song by themselves. They give us cause to be proud of our local schools and our city. And we're proud of them, too.
    I've already posted the hottytoddy video at the top of this post, but click this link to see the hottytoddy.com story on the quintet.

Oxford School District orchestra presents Spring 2013 concert

    The Oxford School District Orchestra, under the direction of Melissa Hathorn, held its Spring Concert Tuesday, April 30, 2013. She was assisted by student teacher Tyler Kuntz.
    I thought they did an outstanding job. The beginner group, in particular, put in a fine performance. It was far more than just one or two notes played again and again.
    Jinny was out of town and so I recorded the concert so she could see our Lucy. I decided to go ahead and record all of the groups. I think it’s really interesting to see the improvement that takes place from year to year, as these videos allow one to do.
    I’ve posted five videos. The first is the beginner group. The second is the Middle School's 7th and 8th grade orchestra. The third is the Oxford High School orchestra. The fourth is the high school advanced orchestra. And the final video is the School District orchestra, grades 6-12, playing Skyfall.
    Skyfall was a difficult piece. And the orchestra didn't get to practice together as a group very much as the students are at different schools. They did well.
    Graduating seniors were recognized at the concert. Kayla Owens was presented with an award recognizing both her hard work and good citizenship in promoting the orchestra program.
    Following the concert Ms. Hathorn announced that she had accepted a position in Los Angeles and that Mr. Kuntz would lead the program next year. (Actually Ms. Hathorn said she was going to L.A. Maybe she's going to Lower Alabama!).

Orchestra members

6th Grade and beginner orchestra
Violin I: Jessica Aten, Jonathan Masters, Rebekah Moen, Young Oh, Keelan Case, Calendula Cheng;
Violin II: Will Bunch, John Parker, Landon Parker, Isuru Hewanamma;
Viola: Hope Brown
Cello: Siena Cizdziel, William Hopper Shakevia Thompson, Noel Torma, Jalon Young

7th & 8th Grade Orchestra
Violin I: Tamjeed Azad, Sarah Booth, Madison Hickey, Spencer Huggins, Tony King, Christopher Le;
Violin II: India Austin, Abigail Castro-Rodriguez, Maddison Colston, Ivy Li, Harrison Tann;
Viola: Brian Aten, Ra’Anthony Perry, Jake Riffe;
Cello: Josh Alba, Lucy Hurdle, Neely Mullen
Bass: Zela Kihei, Raina Woolworth

High School Orchestra
Violin I: Yoomin Jo (Concertmistress), Kayla Owens, Lucile Easterbrook, Renee Sullivan-Gonzalez, Steven Le, Boatman Jacobs, Guy Farmer, Maia Payne, Alex Vinson;
Violin II: Cindy Torma, Shreya Mathur, Ethan Holmes, Chamil Jayaratna, Deterrias Pegues, Jasmine Minor, Alexander Minyard, Keyshawn Williams;
Viola: Cheyenne Griffin
Cello: Kashaun Wortham, Kendall Roy, Thita Thamutok;
Bass: Kevin Hill, Tyreq Roberson, Eboni Thomas
Percussion: Sydney Hansen, Connor Vinson, Kim Casissa
Piano: Joonhee Jo