All of Revere’s Orchestras, which range from fourth graders all the way to high school students, all conducted by Joshua Bowman, performed in their last concert of the year.
Bowman has taught orchestra for seven years and has taught at Revere for two. Since his arrival he has worked to get the orchestra to a higher performance level and having achieved that, he is excited to continue to elevate their musical abilities.
“I’m excited to see the continued growth. We have come a long way in these last two years and . . . now we can really do something instead of just playing songs. We’ll be able to play songs the level that we should, but really well,” Bowman said.
The concert took place in the main gym where each grade level was set up on the gym floor. Similar to Bands in the Round in the fall, this type of production benefits the students who get to see the progress of each grade level.
“The fourth graders will get to see what the high school students are doing. [The] high schoolers will get to see everybody else and they’ll all get to see the progression of what it looks like as they go through,” Bowman said.
Teaching so many different grades in a day calls for a few different teaching styles. Bowman expanded the ways he translates skills to younger students versus older students.
“At the younger ages, it’s a lot less particular. It is more based on the fundamentals. If we can get some extra stuff along the way, then that’s great. But then as we get to middle school, I start introducing more. We can’t just play the right note at the right time, we have to play it the right way,” Bowman said.
The theme for this year’s concert is Olympics. With the summer Olympics taking place in Paris this summer, Bowman has made sure each piece was connected to either the Paris setting, the events or both.
“We are playing one song, American in Paris, because it’s in Paris. Whatever I can do to match the songs along with the Olympic theme. A lot of the time I come up with a theme for the concert and match what can go along with it,” Bowman said.
Rosa Parsons, a sophomore and five year orchestra member on the violin, first joined the orchestra for the social aspect. For Parsons the most difficult part of the music this concert was not the technical aspects but the notes and speed. But, no matter the difficulty, she still enjoys playing.
“There’s more shifting this time and it’s faster…It’s a lot of fun. We get to make cool sounds on metal, wood, and horse tail hair,” Parsons said.
Another performer, Reese Patton, described how being a part of the orchestra and learning an instrument positively influences other aspects of her academics.
“It does teach you not to give up on work just because it’s hard. If I stopped at every difficult part and then just quit the song every time, I’d never end up playing a song. You’re not going to get everything perfect the first time,” Patton said.
Patton’s favorite piece from this concert was Fire Dance by Soon Hee Newbold. due to the challenges it posed and the feeling of accomplishment it produced.
“I feel good about myself when playing it knowing that it feels difficult but I can
play it. Normally you have like a four four, so it’s four beats. This one is a nine eight and it was a very interesting time signature to play,” Patton said.
Bowman has been involved with music since he was a kid and has translated that love into his passion for teaching.
“I got interested in playing the violin because I watched an orchestra play. Everybody’s bow going the same direction and the whole orchestra just looked amazing and I told my parents I wanna play that instrument. That was 32 years ago [and] I have been playing ever since,” said Bowman.
The concert was a satisfying conclusion to all of the new skills the students have learned.
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