But it wasn’t only the symphony who performed. Some 30 students with the Fairfield High School Chamber Orchestra opened the show, with a handful of Cincinnati Symphony members playing alongside them.
“It’s been an exciting experience. It’s been very interesting to see what we can become as an orchestra,” said Brandon Minor, a sophomore who plays the cello.
Minor confessed to being “a little nervous, but I’m always this way before a show.”
Parents in the audience were excited as well, including Cindy Begley, whose son, Joseph Wilburn, also is a cellist. But he might have missed out on the performance.
“He just re-joined the orchestra, so this is a big deal. For some reason he took a year off as a freshman but tried out for the chamber orchestra,” Begley said.
The chamber orchestra played the first movement of the “Holberg Suite, Op. 40.” After they finished, junior Liz Rose, who plays violin, was glad it was over, but in a good way.
“I thought it went really well, and it sounded really good from where I was sitting,” she said. “It’s been kind of hectic, and people have been worried, but now that it’s here, it’s not as bad as we thought it would be.”
Then the Cincinnati Symphony came on, playing a piece called “Count Up” by its own pianist, Stewart Goodyear, then Bach’s first concerto, then Beethoven’s fifth symphony.
Sherry Randall, the director of the chamber orchestra told the audience, “My students have had the privilege of working with the principals (orchestra members) in sectionals this afternoon, I could never have pulled off all of this without your help.”
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