All City Concert broadcasts generation talents, musical passions
A cacophony of sounds filled the auditorium as 3rd through 12th graders took the stage at Oshkosh North for ‘The Night of 1,000 Strings.’ This annual All City concert brought orchestra students together to display the evolution of playing a string instrument. Elementary Strings students were conducted by directors Kaylee Sparks and Deanne Carloni, middle schoolers by Kevin Nutini and Deanne Carloni, and high schoolers by Yukiko Grine.
Sixth grader Rose Meyer experienced her first year playing the viola, which she picked up from a thirst for musical knowledge.
"I joined orchestra because I wanted to learn," she said. "I was anxious while we were practicing beforehand, but I had fun and enjoyed it."
Each group played two to three unique songs that demonstrated their skill level and talent. Moving up to the high school orchestras, the music increased in difficulty, but it wasn’t anything the experienced students couldn’t handle. For junior Jenna Mollenhauer, playing for the learning process was the most exciting part of the experience.
“It’s satisfying to start playing a piece because we sound pretty bad, but then we work on it over and over again, and suddenly it sounds really good,” she said. “I also liked it when we practiced ‘Applause’ by Lady Gaga with the recording. It was like playing the real performance in class. And then we got to play with the drums in the actual concert. I just love that song, and it was so much fun.”
West alum Mike Malone was the drum accompaniment for the high school students in their performances. Other teacher and adult helpers included Lyda Osinga on the piano and Andrew Hutchinson, who assisted with sound checks and conducting the final number.
The West String Orchestra performed “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga and “Sunflower” by Swalee and Post Malone. This was followed by the West Symphony Orchestra who performed “Applause” by Lady Gaga and The Avengers theme. Junior Madison Rucinski, a member of the symphony orchestra, has been playing the violin for seven years.
“I chose to join orchestra because I was homeschooled and I wanted something to do as a hobby,” she said. “I joined elementary strings and I’ve done orchestra since, so I’ve been a part of this concert for many years.”
Mollenhauer has been playing the violin for eight years.
“At first, I started because my cousin played the violin and she quit playing violin like a month after I started playing, but then I just enjoyed it so I just never stopped,” she said. “Now I get to experience performances like the All City concert.”
Preparation for a concert of this size, however, required extensive planning and coordination. West and North Orchestra director Yukiko Grine was in the grit of it for months before the day of the performance.
`“It’s a big event, so even though it lasts a little less than an hour it’s months of preparation that we start to plan the year before, so it's a year in the making every year,” she said. “There are a lot of logistical and equipment related things that we have to take care of and plan for so that it runs smoothly.”
The students also had their plates full as they balanced concert preparation and Solo and Ensemble polishing. Because of the circumstance, Grine kept the music for All City a bit easier to reduce any stress the students may have been having,
“For our purposes, the music that we played wasn’t overly complicated for the high school students. So, I think we were able to balance learning, rehearsing, and making it great along with preparing for Solo and Ensemble,” she said. “It worked out just fine because it wasn’t a full concert all by ourselves.”
Even so, Grine still needed help from the community to make it all possible,
“We had to have enough volunteers to set up and strike, so we asked parents and students to help,” she said. “We couldn’t do it without them.”
Despite the stress of the size of the performance, Grine found it all worth it to see each and every string student perform together, on “The Night of 1,000 Strings.”
“It was totally worth it because the students, families, and friends that came to the concert got to see the whole scope of the string program in Oshkosh,” she said. “It was good for them to have that perspective and to see what the future holds.”
by: Ashley Schumann
Published on March 17, 2023
Oshkosh West Index volume 119 issue VI