60 students from across the St. Louis District 8 area were chosen to participate in this year’s Honors Orchestra, with musicians from grades 9-12th. Mr. Edwin Simon, Director of Orchestras at Parkway South High School, will be directing the 2016 program. This year, students will be working on pieces by Vivaldi, Grainger, Rachmaninoff, and Britten. The following students were selected from GCAA:

Nicholas Baggett, junior, violin

Kareemah Thomas, sophomore, viola

Tessa Wild, sophomore, violin

Rehearsal dates include October 11th, October 25th, and November 1st. Performance day is Saturday, November 5rd, at Fort Zumwalt East High School.

“We had to audition with two excerpts from two pieces, one of them was slow and beautiful so we had to work on our vibrato, and one of them was  really fast to make sure we could shift at an accelerated pace,” explained Wild.

When asked how this opportunity reflected the orchestra department at GCAA, Wild added, ” I think it shows that Grand Center produces some awesome people and some awesome artists.”