Chamber gleams in the City of Dreams

The Samo Chamber Orchestra—the orchestra program's advanced small ensemble—flew into New York City on March 6 to compete in the prestigious National Orchestra Cup.Every year, this competition hosts nine of the finest high school orchestras in the U.S to compete in the Alice Tully Hall at Juilliard School’s Lincoln Center. Each orchestra plays a rehearsed performance, and is then assessed by five judges and a clinician, the latter of which then gives a brief clinics to the orchestra to inform them of what they did well and how they can improve.Before Chamber’s final concert in the Alice Tully Hall, they had the opportunity to participate in multiple clinics and masterclasses around New York City, preparing their pieces and improving their skills further before the competition. They found the extra practice to be essential for their potential success in the competition, considering their size disadvantage.“From Wednesday through Friday, we worked with the head professor of music at NYU, the assistant conductor of the NY Philharmonic and the music director of the Juilliard Pre-College Orchestra,” second violin section leader Grace Alexander (’19) said. “As the smallest orchestra in the competition with 19 musicians, we were up against groups that had 130 people, so we definitely felt like a bit of an underdog.”Alongside Alexander, the section leaders were: first violin leader Arya Shapouri (’19), viola leader Ella Hammersly (’19), cello leader Lily Stern (’20) and bass leader Weston Kerekes (’20). The orchestra played “Death and the Maiden” by Franz Schubert and movements I and III of “Concerto Grosso” by Ernest Bloch.After their performance, Chamber placed second overall and won first in the Best String Section category among all competing schools. Arya Shapouri was named the Best High School String Soloist.“It’s beyond astounding that a public school’s extracurricular orchestra that barely meets after school was able to not only tour to NYC, but bring some trophies back too!” Shapouri said. Although his humility regarding his soloist award was clearly evident, Shapouri was proud nonetheless about the achievement.“It was pretty cool!  The award was a nice culmination of all the rehearsals and coachings I’d received over this year,” Arya Shapouri said.