By: Isabella Chan
On November 1, the Intermediate, Advanced, and Chamber Orchestra attended a concert showcase at El Diamante High School due to the construction at L.J. Williams Theater.
Robert Gutierrez, ‘26, is a violinist playing with the Advanced Orchestra. The Advanced Orchestra played a total of 3 songs.
He has been playing the violin for 6 years, initially looking for a new hobby to pick up on. Gutierrez says, “Beforehand, I was like shaking almost… but afterwards it felt really nice, I was really happy everything turned out good.”
Overall, Gutierrez thought the concert was good and was glad “nobody broke an instrument”.
Matthias “Xander” Caballero, ‘25, is a part of the Chamber Orchestra playing the violin. The Chamber Orchestra played a total of two songs during the concert.
Caballero was looking for a challenging instrument to take on during 5th grade, so he chose the violin. Although his school did not offer violin in the music program, he found an after-school program that led to his start with this instrument.
The orchestra previously had a festival at College of the Sequoias (COS) on October 27 to show judges what they had been working on so far in the semester.
They then received feedback from people at a university level. Caballero says, “So this one [the concert] was more just like a showcase for family and friends to be able to see how we’ve been doing and what we’ve been working on.”
Before the concert, Caballero was slightly worried before performing. “We had added two new movements that we only spent like three days working on… but I think we performed well, so afterwards we had a very positive attitude about how it went.”
Bianca Lumapas, ‘27, is another Chamber Orchestra member who plays the viola.
Lumapas says she got into playing viola because she had previously broken her foot and was no longer able to do her other activity which was dance. “I didn’t want to be bored during my recovery phase,” she says.
Lumapas finds that the concert was not their best performance, but she still thinks they did okay during the concert. Before the concert, Lumapas says she was pretty calm. “I was excited to show off what we had been learning throughout the school year!”
Isabella Chan
Isabella (Ella) Chan ('26) is a second year arts and entertainment journalist for the Redwood Gigantea. You can reach out to her by emailing at isabe.ch5254@vusd.us
Tags: chamber orchestra, orchestra, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, rhs, showcase, visalia ca
Viola IS the most logical next step after breaking one’s foot!