Perrysburg High School senior Raquel Burden , as a student of the violin for eight years and the school orchestra’s concertmaster, is an old pro at performing.
However, competitions are a different story.
“We have performed at many conventions,” Burden said. “We played at the Midwest Clinic, and we have done many state orchestra events, but in the past four years we have never done a competition.”
There has to be a first time; Burden’s was at the recent American String Teacher Association’s National Orchestra Festival.
The Select Strings orchestra at Perrysburg High School was one of 12 high school ensembles selected twice before, and Michael Smith , the district’s orchestra director, said the orchestra placed third each time.
As the old saying goes, the “third time’s a charm,” and the cliche was proved again when the ensemble of about 30 students was informed it had been named the 2024 ASTA Grand Champions.
Burden and Smith, and probably everyone else, were wowed.
“Then I found out Select Strings was the national champs, I could not believe it,” Burden said. “I remember standing up and hearing everyone cheering. ... It was so surreal. I immediately started crying because the whole group had put in so much effort all year. We put our all into that performance.”
The Select Strings is just one of the many orchestras and ensembles at PHS; there are six orchestras with about 200 students taking part. The student musicians play the violin, viola, cello, bass, and harp. Students perform in the Ohio Music Education Association at the high school level and perform 8 to 10 concerts each school year.
“During the past four years I have done a lot with Select Strings,” Burden said. “We have performed at many conventions, we played at the Midwest Clinic, and we have done many state orchestra events.”
The ensemble performed at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, which Smith said is one of the most prestigious events the group could do.
“That's something that is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the students,” Smith said.
Smith has been in the Perrysburg School system for nearly 30 years, and he’s been orchestra director for nearly six of those years. His colleagues urged him to apply the Select Strings ensemble for the ASTA competition.
“And once we did our first one in 2016 in Pittsburgh, we found it to be not only a great experience for the students performance-wise, but while they're at that conference, the students can attend workshops,” Smith said.
Not everyone is accepted in the ASTA competition, so the Select Strings ensemble was lucky. Or was it luck?
“You have to submit a couple of years’ worth of your programming that you've done, you have to have some letters of recommendation from professionals in the industry,” Smith said. “You also have to send in a recording of your group, and then you're selected to be a part of the competition. It's not one where you just sign up and you can be a part of it. So just to get accepted is a huge step.”
Just who is responsible for that huge step depends on whom you are speaking to.
Burden has her opinion: “Mr. Smith built the PHS orchestras up from nothing. Mr. Smith is the reason we won at ASTA; without him, we would not be where we are today,” she said.
“Mr. Smith does an immense amount for the PHS orchestras. He truly is the reason Perrysburg has such phenomenal orchestras.”
Ask Smith, and he says the students and school administration at PHS get all the credit.
“I'm very, very lucky to have such great students at Perrysburg,” he said. “Not only as musicians, but the students are respectful, and they're responsible. They really try their best, and they're just really excellent people to work with, and they make my job easy. And it's a joy to teach them.”
Plus, he said, in the schools, it's a really high talent level in all of the fine arts.
“We have students that are dedicated and really driven and passionate to succeed,” Smith said. “Our administration is very supportive in scheduling, allowing students to do more than one fine art.
“[The officials] are advocates for the arts and are very supportive not only financially but also with flexible scheduling and making it possible for students to experience as much of the fine arts as they can.”
The answer to “who gets the credit” is a no-brainer. With everyone working in concert with each other, being selected as the Grand Champion is a given.
Coming Up
■ The Pavilion at Bittersweet Farms, 12660 Archbold-Whitehouse Rd., Whitehouse; 11:30 a.m. Friday. Music Vine Concert Series. Live music at the Pavilion. Free
■ Over Yonder Concert House: Virginia Street, Toledo; 6 p.m. Saturday. Tim Easton , singer-songwriter of Nashville. Tickets: $20. Visit overyonderconcerthouse.com .
■ Robinwood Concert House, 2564 Robinwood Ave., Toledo; John Mueller and Damon Sturdivant . Tickets: $20. t oledobellows.wordpress.com .
■ Lucille's Jazz Lounge at TolHouse, 1447 N. Summit St., Toledo; 4 p.m. Sunday. Buckeye Broadband and The Blade Consonant Conversations: Chamber Music mixes classical and contemporary chamber pieces. Pascal Bentoiu’s String Quartet No. 2 "Consonance"; Charles Small’s Conversation for Trombone and Bass; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Quartet No. 19 in C Major "Dissonance," K. 465. Tickets: $40 and $15. Visit artstoledo.com or 1838 Parkwood Ave., or call 419-246-8000.
■ Ritz Theatre, 30 S. Washington St., Tiffin; 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Toledo Symphony Brass Quintet. Two trumpets, a French horn, a trombone, and a tuba. Tickets: $10, $15, $20, $25. Visit ritztheatre.org or call the box office at 419-448-8544.
■ Wildwood Preserve Metropark, Manor House, 5100 Central Ave., Toledo; 6 p.m. May 22. Opera Outdoors Live Pop-Up Series. Resident artists are Sara Mortensen, Imara Miles , Jon Suek , Evan Fleming , and Steven Naylor . Free.
■ Detroit Opera House, 1526 Broadway St., Detroit; 7:30 p.m. Friday, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Cunning Little Vixen by Leos Janacek is appropriate for children 6 and up. Roberto Kalb, conductor. Singers include Samantha Hankey , Mane Galoyan , Michael Sumuel , and David Cangelosi . Tickets are $15 to $140. To purchase, visit detroitopera.org or call 313-237-SING [7464].
■ Hill Auditorium, 825 N. University Ave, Ann Arbor; 8 p.m. Saturday. Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra ends its 2023-2024 season with joy — Ode to Joy, that is. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Music Director Earl Lee directs the orchestra, the UMS Choral Union, and soloists Julie Adams , soprano; Jazimina Creamer-MacNeil, mezzo-soprano; Cesar Andres Parreno , tenor; and Joseph Parrish , bass. Also on the program is John Adams’ the Wound-Dresser. Tickets are $30 to $90, and they are going fast. Contact a2so.org , or mutotix.umich.edu , or call 734-605-5586.
■ Kerrytown Concert House: 415 N. 4th Ave., Ann Arbor. 4 p.m. Sunday. The Unsung Series with Tyler Driskill and Friends: All the Things You Are … and then some! A tribute to Oscar Hammerstein II and his collaborations with Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Sigmund Romberg, Richard Rodgers, and then some. Driskill, piano; Catie Leonard and Ben Powell , vocals; Annie Hayes , drums. Tickets: $19 to $50.
7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Spring Fling – A Kerrytown Concert House Kaleidoscope Celebration of the 23/24 concert season. Performers include Joel Schoenhals, Mark Lincoln Braun , Maurice Draughn , Tyler Driskill, Emily Olson , Monica Swartout-Bebow , Kathy Waugh, Steffani Kitayama, R MacKenzie Lewis, Grant Flick , and others. Tickets: $19 to $50.
7:30 p.m. May 23. Soulful Strings. Indian Carnatic Percussion master Vidwan Ganesh Kumar; Sri G Vignesh Shankar , Carnatic guitar; Sri Ganesh Kumar , kanjira & konnakol; Sri Sarvesh Shankar , ghatam; and Sri Sanjay Sankaran , mridangam. Tickets: $19 to $40. For tickets, visit kerrytownconcerthouse.com , call 734-769-2999; or email kch@kerrytownconcerthouse.com .
■ Tecumseh Center for the Arts, 400 N. Maumee St. Tecumseh, Mich. 7 p.m. Sunday. TCA Big Band & VocalAires presents Past, Present, Future: 20 Years in the Making. Songs include “The Way You Look Tonight,” “Girl from Ipanema,” “You've Got a Friend in Me,” and more. Tickets: $10. Visit thetca.org , call 517-423-6617, or email boxoffice@thetca.org .
Send news of music to Heather Denniss at hdenniss@theblade.com at least one week before your event.
Local News
Comments / 0