- Tempe Union High School District
- TUHSD Newsroom
Tempe High Orchestra Holds Concert with MusicNova Orchestra Professionals!
Tempe High’s orchestra hosted their winter concert last week, where the Buffaloes were able to perform with professionals from the MusicNova Orchestra! Tempe High is honored to have a partnership with MusicNova Orchestra, where professionals mentor and teach the Buffalo students and provide them the opportunity to perform like a professional.
Robert Ledger, MusicaNova Orchestra Board President, also expressed how much the professionals value the relationship they have built with the Tempe High Orchestra students. He shared that the professionals enjoy inspiring and teaching students because they “were once tweens and teens playing in middle- and high-school orchestras. Before they could play amazingly difficult passages, they had to learn how to hold a bow. Tape once marked where to play notes on their fingerboards. In other words, they were once like the orchestra students at Tempe High School.”
The opportunity to play in a concert with professionals at a young age is something special to Osborne, and she hopes to continue to be able to provide her students the chance to be mentored. Over the Thanksgiving holiday break, she and THS Sophomore Jazmin Flores played with the MusicNova Orchestra in Scottsdale. Osborne shared that; “Jazmin Flores was part of the professional orchestra for this performance. I remember playing a side-by-side concert with the Columbus (Ohio) Symphony when I was in 10th grade. That experience is one reason that I became a music teacher. Every time I get to share this same joy with a student of mine, I am happy!”
Osborne is passionate about the power of classical music and continues to inspire her students to chase their passions and dreams through music; “Keeping classical music alive requires nurturing young talent, and there’s no better way to do that than to share a stand with a teen player. I’ve read the comments from Tempe students about how much they get from the experience, but our musicians get as much or more from our joint performances. It’s a sense of giving back, but also of being energized by the energy and passion of someone at the beginning of their musical journey. It’s a great reminder of where we first found the fire, and it helps to rekindle it.”
However, that’s not all students were looking forward to during their performance. The Buffaloes hand-picked the theme of “running” for and all of the music for their concert to honor their teacher, Jill Osborne. Osborne participated in a 32-mile race in the days after the concert, so her students honored her by wearing athleisure to the concert and picking songs that reminded them of running and training to support her!
Congratulations to the Tempe High Orchestra for an amazing winter concert, and to Orchestra director Jill Perry for completing her 32-mile race and helping her students discover their passions via music!