BY RACHEL WINDLER
University Interscholastic League-or UIL for short. It's the competition orchestra classes all over the state looked forward to and prepared for all year. Four pieces of prepared music and one sight-read composition later, the results were announced. Shoulders slumped and eager faces turned down.
Months of work - practicing, group rehearsals, all of it - seemed to have been for naught. This past Wednesday, at Madison High School, the Wagner Varsity Orchestra learned that there is always more to be done. The stage pieces of music, Mock Morris, Symphonia No. 4, and the first and third movements of Choreography, were performed with all the enthusiasm of a dog greeting its long missed owner. But the notes seemed to have fallen sour on the ears of the judges. Listening back, the young musicians suddenly realized their mistakes that led them to the low scores of threes, from each judge.
"We definitely could have done better. We all should have practiced more, and not just playing through the song. Actually working out the parts that are most difficult for you. That's what practicing is," senior Deja Dorrough, concert master of the orchestra, admonished the group. "If it isn't perfect, you need to be practicing."
As some consolation, however, in the sight-reading section of the competition, Varsity orchestra got the highest score possible: ones from every judge, otherwise known as sweepstakes. The scores were due mostly in part to the fact that sight-reading, or playing a piece for the first time without having seen it before, was practiced extensively in class. This orchestra has quite a track record with getting sweepstakes in sight-reading, so the exorbitant win paled in the overshadowing despair of the stage performance,
But all hope is not lost; despite several seniors in the group leaving this year, confidence is already being instilled in the younger members of the orchestra that next year's scores will be far more impressive. "I think everyone has learned from what happened this year, including me. Next year, the music for UIL will be handed out much sooner and rehearsed in much more depth to insure sweepstakes not only in sight-reading, but on stage as well," orchestra director Katherine Reiner assured her students.
University Interscholastic League-or UIL for short. It's the competition orchestra classes all over the state looked forward to and prepared for all year. Four pieces of prepared music and one sight-read composition later, the results were announced. Shoulders slumped and eager faces turned down.
Months of work - practicing, group rehearsals, all of it - seemed to have been for naught. This past Wednesday, at Madison High School, the Wagner Varsity Orchestra learned that there is always more to be done. The stage pieces of music, Mock Morris, Symphonia No. 4, and the first and third movements of Choreography, were performed with all the enthusiasm of a dog greeting its long missed owner. But the notes seemed to have fallen sour on the ears of the judges. Listening back, the young musicians suddenly realized their mistakes that led them to the low scores of threes, from each judge.
"We definitely could have done better. We all should have practiced more, and not just playing through the song. Actually working out the parts that are most difficult for you. That's what practicing is," senior Deja Dorrough, concert master of the orchestra, admonished the group. "If it isn't perfect, you need to be practicing."
As some consolation, however, in the sight-reading section of the competition, Varsity orchestra got the highest score possible: ones from every judge, otherwise known as sweepstakes. The scores were due mostly in part to the fact that sight-reading, or playing a piece for the first time without having seen it before, was practiced extensively in class. This orchestra has quite a track record with getting sweepstakes in sight-reading, so the exorbitant win paled in the overshadowing despair of the stage performance,
But all hope is not lost; despite several seniors in the group leaving this year, confidence is already being instilled in the younger members of the orchestra that next year's scores will be far more impressive. "I think everyone has learned from what happened this year, including me. Next year, the music for UIL will be handed out much sooner and rehearsed in much more depth to insure sweepstakes not only in sight-reading, but on stage as well," orchestra director Katherine Reiner assured her students.