By Margo Moore
In the beginning of last December, nine musicians from Redwood went to play in the CODA honors orchestra.
“It was people from all over the state, so I know there was, the first chair, I think, was from El D,” says Zachary Tomooka, ’26, a cello player, “It was my first time actually being at a concert where they actually took their music super seriously.”
“I’m assuming that’s what future orchestras are going to do when I’m an adult playing the cello full time or something, so, it was very enlightening,” he says, “we practiced a lot, I think we sounded very good.”
Yong Lee, ’26, who also plays the cello says, on how he feels about the experience, ” I don’t know to be honest, I guess it was like challenging to be there with top players from high schools all over the state and it was a bit overwhelming but overall I had fun there, I’d like to go again”
“I mean I made a couple mistakes but I think I sounded good,” he says.
According to violinist Tyler Tomooka, ’23, “I kind of did it as a spur of the moment thing, and then I practiced for like an hour straight, and then I was like, okay, well, there’s no going back now even though I don’t really want to do it.”
“I’m sure I had something more insightful to say like right after it happened, that’s how I feel about it right now. Especially listening back to it, it sounded like a professional orchestra,” he continues.
The orchestra was divided into two groups: strings and symphony. Most Redwood musicians were in strings, but there is a video of the symphony on YouTube you can watch here: https://youtu.be/WQictE5_Owo
Margo Moore
Margo, 25', is a sophomore at Redwood High School and a second-year journalism student who works as an arts and entertainment writer for the Redwood Gigantea. She also loves to take photos and publish photogalleries. You can reach her at @margo.mo3574@vusd.us
Tags: arts, arts and entertainment, orchestra, orchestra concert
