Eva Marsden, symphony orchestra member and senior

What are you most excited to experience at the Midwest clinic?

I’m excited about going to see all the different orchestras and just having the experience of doing something bigger than our school. It’s something that can help other teachers, since we’re a demo group, and I’m just excited to see the bigger musical world.

What do you think will be challenging about the trip?

I think the hardest part about this is the amount of pieces we’re playing. Because we’re playing 14 pieces that we have to have perfected, although they’re easy, you have to have them all perfect. What makes this hard is the huge amount of pieces that we’re playing, but I’m still just really excited to go and experience it and just have that opportunity.

How do you think performing at the  Midwest clinic will impact you as a musician going forward?

I think it’s a really great learning experience, because we’re not playing music that’s super hard or anything, we’re playing more educational pieces [for other orchestras]. I just really think it’s a great experience to learn how to play musically, and just for something bigger than a school concert.

What’s your favorite piece to perform and why?

Off the top of my head, “Bonus Level.” It’s kind of like a Mario-themed video game song.

Thomas Chen, director of CHS orchestras

How did your orchestra start preparing for this performance, and how early did the process begin?

It’s kind of complicated because it’s not just a strict performance. Last year, when we were invited to Midwest, we auditioned, they invited us to play, and that was a full-on performance that was about the orchestra. This year, because they did such a nice job, there were a couple of clinicians who wanted to use the orchestra as a sort of demonstration ensemble. The whole conference is not just performances; it is performances showcasing really fine orchestras and bands across the country, but in addition to that, it’s this huge conference for orchestra teachers, orchestra directors, band teachers, band directors and people like that. There’s a big component of clinic sessions where there’s somebody up there talking and leading lectures and stuff like that. 

The orchestra this year is a demonstration ensemble. So for the first session that we’re a demonstration ensemble for, it’s with two professors, Dr. Rebecca McLeod and Dr. Frank Diaz, and they’re doing a session on how to rehearse an orchestra, and they’re using our orchestra for help with that. The pieces that they’ll be playing for that are purposefully underprepared so that there are things to improve on, so we actually haven’t spent very much time working on that. The other session is sort of a product showcase for a publisher, where they’ll ask us to read through some of this new music that they have coming out. It’s a lot of educational repertoire that’s for varying levels of groups, but most of those pieces are on the easier side, for our orchestra, and so the preparation has like been sprinkled in throughout the semester.

What do you hope your students take away from performing at the Midwest Clinic?

I actually would not have agreed to do [the Midwest Clinic] because in my mind, I wasn’t thinking that they would have a lot to take away from it. The only reason I thought there might be something to take away from this was because of when we went last year. The kids kept talking about it throughout the school year, what a great time they had, not only just going on a trip, but also because it was a big professional development conference for music teachers. Even though not very many of the students, if any of them, are going to choose a career in music, I think it was really interesting for them to see that side of stuff. Some of them even attended clinic sessions, or there’s a big exhibit hall with all sorts of music vendors, and we have violinists trying out trumpets and things like that. I think they just had a really good time, and it was really interesting for them to see that side of the industry.

What do you think will be challenging about the trip, logistically or musically? 

It really was preparation for the music. Even though it’s easier, they are still looking for a certain amount of quality from the playing. The most challenging part of that was just convincing all the students to take it seriously enough, even though it was easier. Logistics will also always reign supreme as some of the more challenging things, especially with taking the students out of the ACEs, which I feel really bad about. 

What are you most excited about?

Last year, when we went, it was so fun because there’s just a little bit of free time. So I’ll even go to sessions, listen to performances or hang out in the exhibit hall, just to do the normal conference things. But while I’m there, vendors will come up to me and be like, “Oh, are you the director of this school? I just met some of your students, and they’re so great. They played the trumpet.” That kind of stuff is really fun, or seeing the kids wandering around together,  just smiling, pointing at things, going over to a new booth and just looking around, I think that’s got to be the coolest thing for me.

Rachel Zhou, symphony orchestra member and senior

What is the Midwest Clinic?

So the Midwest Clinic is a very prestigious music conference held in Chicago mainly for people like music educators, companies and just people in the music sphere. They’ll have a bunch of different booths of publishing and composers that are selling different music-related products like technique books. But the main part of it is they’ll have a bunch of different performing organizations, usually either high schools or middle schools, and they’ll come and perform so that educators in the audience can hopefully learn a bit about things like the pieces that they’re doing and how they’re doing it. They’ll also have a bunch of little mini-clinics where professors are coming on stage, and they’re sharing tips about techniques that they use in their class or like pieces that they program, so that hopefully people in the audience can learn more about how to improve their own musical classroom.

What are you most excited to experience at the Midwest clinic?

I’m most excited about the opportunity to bond with my orchestra, especially on an overnight trip, which I’ve never done before. I’m mainly just excited to kind of hang out with my friends and meet new people. I’m also excited to attend some clinics that I’m interested in going to in my free time or looking at the different booths and just inquiring about music.

What do you think will be challenging about the trip?

I think the hardest thing about this trip is that we’ll have to skip some of our finals. We leave on Wednesday after our ACEs, and we’ll come back Thursday very late at night, so we’ll skip our Thursday ACEs. But that also means that since we skip Thursday, we can’t do our finals later, so we have to do them earlier.

How do you think performing at the Midwest Clinic will impact you as a musician going forward?

The Midwest Clinic is a very prestigious conference, so I think getting the opportunity to perform here is obviously a very rare opportunity that will definitely inspire me to continue doing orchestra in the future, and keep music in my life through college.

Howard Gu, symphony orchestra member and senior 

How did you become involved in the symphony orchestra?

I did middle school orchestra all three years, and then once I got into high school, I first placed into advanced concert orchestra, and then auditioned all the way up to symphony orchestra, because it was just something that I really enjoyed. I had a lot of other hobbies going on at the same time, but I kind of put a pause on those for orchestra, mainly because I wanted to choose something to focus on.

What are you most excited about for the trip?

I think what’s great is that they have a lot of activities arranged for us. There’s dinner once we get there, for example, or we get to explore the venue to see other mentors and students from across the country. And what’s also really fun is that this year, instead of performing, we’re doing a sight read, a debut type of performance, so composers and other institutions have reached out to us for us to debut their pieces. So, we’re not really performing, but we’re there to kind of back these publishers and play their pieces for you.

Do you think anything will be challenging about the trip, and if so, what?

Generally, the pieces are kind of on the easier side, and that inherently makes us ignore them a bit more than when we have more challenging repertoire, like our school concerts. We actually had a Zoom call with one of the publishers who asked us to play the pieces, three days ago, actually, and they pointed out some feedback that we had to work on. I think the challenging part is just remembering to work on the music when it’s not directly in front of you, because that’s not what we’re playing for, like in a typical concert.

How do you think performing at the Midwest clinic will impact you as a musician going forward?

I think it’s gonna establish a lot of connections because performing at Carmel High School, while it is a really big school with a lot of connections already, compared to the Midwest, it’s a whole international type of system. You get to meet a lot of different types of people and experience different types of styles, and I think that’s something that’s inaccessible at Carmel High School. Midwest will be really unique, purely because it’s an international program.

Do you have a favorite moment from the orchestra, and what is it?

My favorite moment would probably be getting dinner before rehearsal, cause I think it’s a really fun bonding moment. It’s a really small group, so no one’s ever unavailable, and everyone just grabs dinner together. It’s just really fun cause it’s every Tuesday, and it’s something to look forward to.