Musicians take to the national stage
A group of Palmerston North students will take to the national stage to perform with the best musicians in the country.
Five students from Palmerston North Girls’ High School have been selected for the New Zealand secondary schools symphony orchestra and will perform in Christchurch next week.
The five are cello player Isabella Li, 15, and violin players Amy Macpherson, 17, Annie Srichanta, 14, Angela Fang, 16, and Haewon Kim, 16, who has also been given the prestigious position of being concert master.
The orchestra has a week of rehearsals then performs a concert. Students auditioned at the end of last year.
Kim said she was looking forward to making friends with new people and being the concert master. “It’s a really big job to be in charge of 80 people and basically everybody is watching you if the conductor screws up, but it’s really exciting”.
Macpherson said she was shocked to be selected, but had always wanted to be in it. She had set the goal of being chosen in her last year of school, which she had done.
Annie said being in the orchestra was something she had always looked forward to.
Isabella said she was proud to be selected at the national level and she was nervous about going but it would be rewarding. All of them said they loved music and spent a lot of time practising every week. They were all involved in other music such as the Manawatū Youth Orchestra, the Girls’ High string orchestra or their own musical groups.
Isabella, Kim and Fang were in a Girls’ High Trio called Greek Yoghurt that went to the Chamber Music New Zealand finals last year. Fang, Isabella and Kim have been in the symphony orchestra before, but it was new for Macpherson and Annie.