On Thursday, March 18, the Leesville high school orchestra will participate in Heritage Music Festival in Nashville.
The Heritage Music Festival, which is celebrating its 30th year, was created by music educators who believed that performing arts students involved in band, chorus and orchestra should be provided with better performing opportunities.
The non-competitive event has three judges for both instrumental and choral groups who provide constructive feedback on each group’s performance. The Heritage festival is the first of its kind to offer a free academic credit to all attendees.
The trip to Nashville will be the orchestra’s first trip as a group, and all participants are very excited.
Eli Kratt, junior, is looking forward to spending a weekend with his fellow musicians. “I can’t wait to get to spend all that time with orchestra. I’m really looking forward to a weekend in Nashville, and the 8 or 9 hour bus rides should be fun, too.”
Gene Kim, sophomore, is not a member of orchestra but is accompanying the group to play bells at the festival. “Well, regardless of the results of the competition I’ll enjoy the experience greatly since I’ve always wanted to perform with Leesville’s performing arts groups.”
Along with performing in the festival, the orchestra will be touring Nashville and visiting hot spots like the Hard Rock Café and the Country Music Hall of Fame. The students will also record in the same studio utilized by Elvis Presley.
The orchestra will return on Sunday, March 21.
Virginia Reed is a superb writer and an even better friend. She enjoys unhealthy foods and writing sarcastic articles. Virginia is the Online Editor for the 2011-12 school year and was a Managing Editor for the 2010-11 year but has not forgotten her humble beginnings as a staff writer when she was a wee sophomore. Her goals for the future are to get an A in newspaper and to apply to college in a timely fashion.
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