Tonight was the Farewell to Seniors Concert for the Klein Oak High School Orchestra. They do this every year as a way to honor and recognize their graduating “orchestra” seniors and their parents.
They do not do anything fancy, but near the end of the concert the seniors are given a small bouquet of flowers (a rose) to take to their parents in the audience. It is just a nice gesture for all the time the parents put in for all the years of orchestra. This year, the orchestra students also presented the orchestra directors with a small token of gratitude. They presented Mrs. Ebel and Mr. Ledford each with a $100 gift card to Walmart. Since each director have babies in diapers, they got excited about that.
The program indicates which students are seniors with an *. The numbers indicate if they are Regional, All-State, etc. I found a mistake in the program. The student above Andrew’s name, Quentan Milliner is a senior but is not indicated as such. Quentan is a friend of Andrew and Kyle. He does karate with the three boys at the dojo. He is a good kid. Kimberly Lai is this year’s Klein Oak High School Valedictorian. Another interesting tidbit of information is that David and Michael Casagrande (Bass players) also did karate at the dojo with Quentan and the boys.
I have to apologize for this picture being so grainy and blurry but I was taking it with my iPhone from way up in the auditorium. I zoomed in as far as it would go to get a close up of the organ. That is Andrew’s Church Organ that he purchased and is currently on loan to the Klein Oak High School Orchestra. Yes, you read that correctly, that is Andrew’s organ. He purchased it. It belongs to him. It comes home on Memorial Day. Quentan was the organist for tonight’s concert. They played the same piece they played at their Full-Orchestra UIL performance. Mr. Ledford actually told the very brief and funny version of the story about how the organ came into existence.
Klein Oak High School’s Full Orchestra which includes a select portion of band players.
Here are the two directors trying to get nearly 200 orchestra students onto the “not quite big enough” Klein Oak High School auditorium stage. Logistical action plans at work. There are nearly 200 students between the various levels of orchestras at the high school. It is exciting to see and hear them all, but it can be a little overwhelming at the same time. There are 11 basses when you get them all on the stage. Since statically speaking that is usually the smallest group of instruments on stage, you can imagine how large the group of violins was (statically the largest group of instruments).
All of the Klein Oak Orchestras on stage. Yes, that is a lot of students and you will notice that they barely fit on the stage. Most of them are standing. It is a tight fit. Orchestra is wonderful program.
I am truly grateful to be able to live in a district that values their arts programs and continues them in spite of the rising costs. I am also excited to be able to be apart of an organization to help raise some of the funds to cover what the district does not cover. The kids are the ones that benefit from this. We as parents might enjoy the results, but the kids are the ones that benefit.
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