6th Grade
These are pictures from my 6th Grade Festival of Orchestras Concert, which took place at Athens High School. These pictures are a great representation of my playing ability, even after only two years of playing the violin. As you can see, I was placed in First Chair for 2nd Violin! That means that I was the best violinist in my class, because in 6th Grade, there were two separate classes for Orchestra. One would do 1st Violin, and the other would do 2nd Violin. These pictures also show that I was enthusiastic about playing violin, because I was smiling throughout the performance. I am also very musical, because I was able to learn how to play the violin accurately in a short amount of time.
7th Grade
These are pictures of my 7th Grade Winter Orchestra Concert. This is a great item for my portfolio, because it shows my playing ability on the violin. As you can see in the pictures below, I am actually in the front row. I was actually placed in 2nd Chair for 2nd Violin! We actually we're each tested individually for our placement in the orchestra in the beginning of the year, and I was actually placed all the way back in 7th Chair. I worked hard throughout the beginning of the year, and I had a certain goal in mind: Raise my chair. I persisted and practiced, and payed very close attention in class. Our placement on the orchestra was also based on our behavior in class. Those who sit in the front must have that "leader-like" quality to them. As the year progressed, I began to pick up things more easily, and worked harder to achieve my goal, to a reasonable extent. Finally, when it came time to get tested once again for the concert, I moved up 5 chairs to become 2nd Chair! This was a really big achievement.
This document is my Adjudication Form from my Solo and Ensemble Festival performance. This document is a great item to be placed in my portfolio because it shows how talented I am at the violin. I actually performed a duet with my friend Alex Meissner, and together, we achieved an overall rating of "1", which represents and excellent level performance and musicianship. This was a great achievement for both my parter and I, because in order to receive this rating, we had work very diligently, and watch out for every single detail in our piece. Along with that, this illustrates how well I can work with others because a large part of this was the togetherness of the ensemble. It really was about teamwork. If one person was not doing so well, then the other person would have to help them in order to receive a 1 together. Both Alex and I worked hard together, cooperated and practiced, practiced, practiced! We worked hard on our ensemble in order to reach our goal TOGETHER. In the end, our hard work payed off, and we received a 1!
8th Grade
This video and these pictures are from our 2015 MSBOA Orchestra Festival at Troy Athens High School. I am performing in the Larson Middle School Advanced Orchestra. This concert is the most important concert of the entire year, and our entire orchestra worked very hard in preparation for this concert. For Orchestra Festival, we prepare three pieces to perform in front of three musical adjudicators who judge us on multiple aspects of a musical performance, such as intonation, style, interpretation, and much more. After that portion, we enter into a sight reading room, where we have five minutes to examine and a brand new music that we have never seen before, without making a sound! After the five minutes expire, we must perform the piece, and an adjudicator judges us on the same categories as the prepared portion of the performance. This is quite a feat to accomplish. This shows how dedicated of a student I am, and how I am a hard-working and well-rounded student. As you can see in the pictures, I am sitting in First Chair, and in order to sit there, I have to outperform all of my other peers, and I did. Practice is essential to this success, and I did do a lot of it. This just shows how dedicated I am, and if I want to accomplish something, with hard work, I can get it done.