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Junior Strings
 
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Junior Strings

Ocean Faloon-Cavendar —

2018 has been another fantastic year for junior strings.

Under the direction of Anne Clark and Carlo Ballara we have learnt many new pieces and had the opportunity to perform at different concerts around Christchurch.

One of my highlights this year was performing in the North-West music festival in the Aurora Centre at the start of the year, our first performance together for the year.

We played Divertimento in D Major by Mozart to begin, this was conducted by Carlo Ballara and we finished with selections from The Lion King, conducted by Anne Clark. Both the pieces went well and were a confidence boost for the rest of the year.

For the orchestra festival this year we had been struggling with two of our pieces that we were going to be performing at the gala concert. Taking part in the workshops run by members of the CSO fixed a lot of the issues and helped us to perform the pieces well at the concert that night.

Some of us also formed a smaller ensemble and worked with Polina Shevchuk, a clarinetist who composed a piece for strings and solo clarinet; Sunrise Over The Countryside Hills. This was a new experience for us, and was really great for everyone to develop the skills necessary for playing in a small group. We are looking forward to performing this at the junior showcase.

The annual retirement home tour this year was a a little more stressful than usual with our bus being late, but once we got going it was a great experience, both for us and each audience throughout the day.

Some of us are moving on next year while others will step up to welcome the new members of the ensemble but we would all like to thank Anne Clark and Carlo Ballara for another amazing year.