In early August, students from any high school orchestral classes were given opportunities to audition for a spot in APAC Orchestra. Last week, the 18 chosen students from the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes travelled alongside strings director Linda Hu and supervisor Ross Jones to Taejon, Korea for their final performance alongside fellow musicians in the Pacific division. Other schools attending included the American International School Guangzhou, Canadian Academy, Concordia International School Shanghai, Western Academy of Beijing, and finally, the host school Taejon Christian International School.
The guest conductor of this year’s APAC Orchestra was Raphael Jiménez, renowned for his work with both professional orchestras at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and student orchestras around the world.
On Jiménez’s teaching style during the musicians’ long rehearsals throughout the three days at TCIS, Lewis Zhu, a violinist in the junior year, feels that he placed more emphasis on overall cohesion and rhythm accuracy than other conductors he’s worked with. “Although he spent less time on expressive elements, I believe playing cohesively is probably more important,” Zhu adds. As concert master and one of the soloists of the concert, Zhu goes on to say that Jiménez gave him and the other soloists “a lot of creative liberty.” Cellist and junior John Chen says that Jiménez’s conducting made him want to direct rehearsals even more than before. “In the past, I didn’t really appreciate just how involved the process is until this year’s APAC,” says Chen.
On the repertoire chosen for the concert, Chen says that although not averse to other musical genres, he would have liked to see a more classical focus “since it was an orchestra event.” Nevertheless, Chen notes that “you often grow to like a piece after many times, and getting to know its nuances more thoroughly.” He concludes by saying that he grew to enjoy all the pieces in the repertoire and even participated in one of the improvisation solos in the concluding piece of the concert.
Along with a reasonably enjoyable repertoire, another highlight for students was meeting a previous strings teacher of SAS. Amanda Staver, who used to teach Crescendo and Intermezzo orchestra classes but now works at AISG, joined several of her old students for photos and conversation. On seeing their old teacher again, the students were ecstatic. “It felt natural goofing off around her, and we wanted to annoy her as much as possible during APAC so she wouldn’t forget us,” jokes Yuna Kashiwa, a sophomore violinist.
Just like any other APAC event, APAC Orchestra provided not just a performing opportunity for committed musicians, but also an invaluable week of bonding across multiple grade levels, as well as experiencing Korean culture. SAS’ APAC musicians are scheduled to perform one of the pieces during next week’s community meeting.