Fifteen orchestra members attended the All-City Orchestra along with other orchestra members from the district on Friday, Sept 28.

All-City Orchestra is an all-day event for students to play with other orchestra members from around the district. They get the opportunity to learn new skills and make friends who enjoy playing an instrument. 

Orchestra directors from the district choose their top players to practice certain pieces for one day and then perform a concert that same evening.

Each year there is a new guest conductor who leads the members to perform different pieces. This year the conductor was Norman Public Schools Fine Arts Director Brad Benson.

Orchestra director Kelli Taylor chose the 15 students for All-City based on prior participation and freshman auditions. 

She selected: Alice Bennett, Nghia Bui, Jackson Burnette, Evan Carayo, Nathan Carr, Sebastian Dover, Elizabeth Goyer, Jesus Hernandez, Dania Kennedy, Katie Maher, Victor Nguyen, Divine Visbal, My Vu, Leah White, and Kevin Williamson.

Burnette and Nguyen were returning members to the orchestra. This was their third year participating and Nguyen’s second year in a row to be concertmaster.

“I was the concertmaster so I led the orchestra, which means they would watch me in order to know what to do. This made my experience even better at All-City,” Nguyen said.

Each orchestra director chooses students who they believe would be great for the role and why. With Nguyen’s experiences of being apart of All-State and OIA, he was chosen to be the concertmaster.

Vu, a freshman, attended All-City Honor Orchestra for the first time.

“I was so nervous because I didn’t know what we were expected to play and I was also scared because I didn’t think I would be a good enough player compared to everyone else,” Vu said. 

The played four different pieces. Student favorites were “Can-Can” by Jacques Offenbach and “Ocean Storm” by Antonio Vivaldi.

“My favorite piece was the ‘Can-Can’ because it’s a familiar piece to me and I have always enjoyed it,” Nguyen said.

Vu and Burnett also thought that “Can-Can” was a good piece, but enjoyed playing “Ocean Storm” more.

“It’s kind of tiring having to play all day, but it’s all worth it in the end,” Burnette said.