Solo & Ensemble Festival

 

LISD held its annual Solo & Ensemble Festival on Saturday at Arbor Creek Middle School.  The festival featured 600+ performances, 50+ of them from Killian.  We cannot overstate how proud we are of our representation at this festival.  Killian students were assigned to two separate rooms and both judges from these rooms were extremely complimentary towards our program, remarking how poised and prepared the students from our school were, and how well the beginners are set up for continued success.  At Killian the orchestra classes are presented as a series of challenges that must be mastered – including mental, physical, and emotional mastery of the music.  When we perform as an orchestra, everything we achieve must be accomplished together.  The Solo & Ensemble Festival represents the individual achievement of each participant.

The judges were asked to rate each performance on a scale from 1-5, with 1 being the highest.  Of the Killian performances, four were rated 2nd division and 47 were rated 1st division.  If the student performed their piece memorized, this was marked for an extra distinction.  In addition to the individual ratings, the judges were asked to select a single outstanding performance from their room.  Here’s the complicated part – the judges listened to musicians of all levels – beginners, advanced middle school players, as well as high school players.  The degree of difficulty was not considered for this award – only the mastery and polish of the performance.  The following students were selected by the room judges:

 

Outstanding Solo

Michael Sheldon – Beginner Cello Solo

 

Outstanding Ensemble

Isaac Ke, Brian Seo, Rishul Ravi – Cello Trio

 

Distinguished Solo

Emily Ke – Beginner Violin Solo

Anna Furnival – Beginner Violin Solo

Chase Allo – Advanced Cello Solo

Claire Chong – Advanced Cello Solo

 

Congratulations to all who participated!