Month: April 2019

Congratulations Garfield Orchestra Students!

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Garfield Orchestra students had a great showing at the Washington State Solo & Ensemble Contest, held in Ellensburg, April 26th and 27th.

Congratulations to the following four students for placing in the top three for Washington state in their instrument categories:

  • 1st Place – Sho K (cello)
  • 2nd Place – Corinna S (trumpet)
  • 2nd Place – Milo P (percussion – mallets)
  • 3rd Place – Sofie F (bassoon)

Garfield Orchestra Auditions – 2019

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Garfield Orchestras are preparing for another exciting year of music making! If you would like to be involved, we want to ensure that you are placed in the proper ensemble to best foster your growth as a musician. In order to do so, we want to hear you play. Here are the important details:

  1. All Freshman String players should enroll in Chamber Orchestra. No audition is required: this class is designed to welcome our Freshman string class to the program and to create the social and technical familiarity necessary for our orchestra family to grow in successive years.
  2. Two of our ensembles, Concert and Symphony Orchestra, meet as a Full Orchestra – including Winds, Brass, and Percussion in addition to Strings. In full orchestra literature, winds, brass, and percussion instruments are treated as soloists. As such, ALL Wind, Brass, and Percussion players must audition to be placed in these ensembles. Concert and Symphony Orchestras are open to Freshman Wind, Brass, and Percussion players by audition.

Audition information documents are available for download here:

The audition dates are May 20 and 21, starting at 4:00pm and going until 6:30pm (if these times fill up, additional days will be added). Sign-ups are available by following this link: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084FA9A82DA7F49-audition

Please Support Garfield Orchestra!

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Last night, Garfield Orchestra celebrated the silver screen with its annual Pops Concert. Over 170 student musicians played music from Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Frozen and more. What a fantastic evening!

The concert also kicked off our Annual Drive. Continuing our legacy of having an award winning program depends on your continued support. A significant part of our mission is to subsidize orchestra activities so that all students can fully participate.

Your donation funds instrumental coaching, music scores/licensing, festival costs, scholarships, and the repair and replacement of school instruments. In addition, this summer we are hoping to renovate our instrument storage room. Next year, we are looking forward to having concerts and programs for our feeder school students – future Garfield musicians! 

Please ensure the continued excellence of our program by donating today. If your company matches employee gifts, you can double your donation!

For those who missed the fabulous concert, here’s a student-produced video explaining why Garfield Orchestra is so important to the students it serves: https://youtu.be/Ug89Mopz8nQ

Special Offer for GHS Students – Leclair & Rameau: the Age of Enlightenment

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An evening of decadent and delicious music from the late French Baroque, including Couperin’s La Paix du Parnasse (“Peace on Parnassus”), Leclair’s second Récréation de Musique, and selections from Rameau’s works for harpsichord, solo and accompanied. This concert is a co-production with the Portland Baroque Orchestra. More information and tickets can be found here.