The director of the Revere Orchestra is preparing his students for the last concert of the year, “Celebration of Genius.”
The selection of songs for each concert is based on a few factors; the time of year, the orchestra’s abilities and how challenging they may be.
“We did some holiday [songs], December classical ones. [So] our May concerts [will] be more pop music, establishing that we can play a lot of things. We have a lot of variety and attract the interests of lots of different people,” Bowman said.
Variety is important to any performance as it gives the audience new material to enjoy with each song, but it is also important for the performers. Bowman does not want students to get bored because the pieces are too similar or frustrated because they are too difficult.
“I first go off of what we’re able to do, and then what’s going to challenge everybody. The hardest thing to do is choosing the music out of everything. Once I know what I’m playing or what we’re playing, then it’s now I just have to teach it. So finding the right balance between what we want to play [and] what’s gonna challenge us versus what we can play,” Bowman said.
Each song he chooses is connected to an overarching theme that keeps the orchestra on track. This year’s theme is Celebration of Genius and revolves around the unique strengths of different composers.
“We are looking at each of the different composers and what they were geniuses at, whether it’s a narrative genius, [like] being able to tell a story with his music, or impressionism,” Bowman said.
Sophomore Lyla Wilson is looking forward to playing one of their arrangements, Folk Tune, which is one of the more challenging and longer songs, but is overall excited to see the concert come together.
“[Folk Tune] sounds really pretty. . . . The concert should be a really good one. All the songs are really interesting, and we have worked really hard on them. And I think that it’s going to sound amazing,” Wilson said.
Marraine Harrington, a junior and cello player in the orchestra, recommends orchestra because of the community and because it is a nice break from academics during the day.
“It’s a community of people and it’s also a fun thing to fill my schedule and just have fun with music. It’s really cool to hear how all the sounds come together,” Harrington said.
Although most orchestra recruiting starts in elementary school, students who are interested or take lessons outside of school are always welcome to join.
