PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles School District orchestra program will host the 40th All City String Review with two performances on Thursday.
The free concerts will be at 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the gymnasium at Port Angeles High School, 304 E. Park Ave.
The annual review features more than 500 performers from Port Angeles High School, Stevens Middle School and Hamilton, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Dry Creek and Franklin elementary schools.
The students, in grades four through 12, will play violins, violas, cellos and basses, under the direction of Nathan Rodahl, Traci Tyson, Carol Koenig and Amber Roskamp.
Each year the program begins with “Fanfare for Strings” by Doris Gazda, performed by all nine grades.
After the opening fanfare, the program alternates between the elementary school side of the gym and the secondary side.
The elementary side begins with “Twinkle Variations,” or Twelve Variations on “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman,” by Mozart followed by the secondary side’s performance of “Appalachian Hymn” by Soon Hee Newbold.
The elementary side will play a French folk song, followed by the secondary side’s “Joust” by Richard Meyer.
The elementary side will return with the fiddle tune “Cripple Creek” and the secondary side will play “El Toro” by Don Brubaker.
The elementary students will play the Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive,” and the secondary students will perform Deborah Baker Monday’s arrangement of “Jupiter” from Gustav Holst’s “Planets” and “Fire in the Forge” by Ted Allen.
The program will end, as is the tradition, with an arrangement of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
“Because we play ‘Ode to Joy’ every year, parents can see their children’s progress on this one song from fourth grade through graduation,” says Amber Rosterkamp, the orchestra director for Dry Creek and Franklin elementary schools.
