By Camille Juton
Staff Writer
The Mira Costa philharmonic and symphony orchestras travelled to San Francisco last weekend to participate in an exchange performance program with the Saratoga High School orchestra.
The orchestra left for San Francisco on the morning of Oct. 28. Its main goal for the weekend, according to orchestra teacher Peter Park, was to expand the Mira Costa orchestra’s horizons and have students learn from the Saratoga orchestra. Both orchestras performed different pieces for each other.
“The whole trip is supposed to be a fun weekend to expand our horizons and play great music together,” senior orchestra member Richard Wedeen said.
Park felt that another goal of the trip was to help the orchestra members bond.
“As an orchestra we’re a team, and as a team we learn about each other,” Park said. “We want to know each other and support each other, which helps us as a group.”
The philharmonic orchestra played “The Jackianus Suite” along with two additional songs with Saratoga orchestra. The symphony orchestra played “Blue Fire Fiddler” and songs by Yosef Suk.
“We worked really hard on learning these songs,” senior orchestra member Merrick Chai said. “We wanted to be able to bring a lot to the table for this exchange.”
Along with learning from the Saratoga orchestra, the Mira Costa orchestra also got the chance to listen to the professional San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
“The trip was a huge success,” Park said, “The opportunity to watch a San Francisco Symphony Orchestra concert was a great way to end the trip.”
This trip is the first of multiple trips that the orchestra will be taking throughout the year to showcase its talent. In March, it will go to Atlanta, Georgia for the American String Teachers Association National Orchestra Festival.
“Seeing how excited everyone was for this trip, I can’t wait to take more fun trips with orchestra,” Chai said.
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