PORT ANGELES — Dozens of Port Angeles High School students left for New York City on Thursday to participate in what Principal Scott Harker calls “an opportunity of a lifetime.”
Sunday at 8 p.m. New York time, 131 members of the high school’s symphony orchestra will perform in Carnegie Hall.
Conducted by orchestra teacher Ronald Jones, the orchestra will play 40 minutes of works by composers Piazzolla and Dvorak.
“For some kids, this is going to be an opportunity of a lifetime to go to New York and perform at Carnegie Hall,” Harker said.
“How many people can say that they’ve done that, let alone a 15-, 16- or a 17-year-old?”
The teens are going to get a shot on national TV as well.
The orchestra is also scheduled to be featured live on CBS’s “The Early Show” at 7:30 a.m. EST today.
The show airs tape-delayed on KIRO channel 7, and the segment might appear between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.
All this week, Jones practiced the orchestra to fine-tune its sound before this weekend’s big performances in the Big Apple.
Harker said the trip for the students was paid for by private funds — about $23,000 — raised by concerts featuring Irish tenor Anthony Kearns last year.
The concerts were put on by Orchestra Parents United for Students, the orchestra booster group.
