The District 7 Orchestra Festival was held at Lampeter-Strasburg High School on Friday January 15, and Saturday, January 16, 2016. Several students from the music department participated in this two-day festival that includes participants from eight different counties in Pennsylvania.

   Senior Amy Whitesell, who advanced on to regionals after attending the festival, explained what districts is and recalls how the auditions were set up.

  “Districts is an orchestra made up of the best musicians in the 8 counties making up our District,” Whitesell said. “You audition in December with a piece that everyone has to learn, and they pick two segments from it. Based on your score, you get ranked, and then if you rank high enough you make it into District Orchestra. The festival itself is in January, and you get your music ahead of time to practice. When you’re there, you re-audition to get a new seating.”

  Orchestra director and conductor Zachary Levi accompanied the students to the festival and remembers some of the highlights from districts.

  “It was two days of pretty intense rehearsals to put together a concert of professional caliber music. Students auditioned for their seats, and then that determined if they were going to move on to regionals,” Levi said. “[The] teachers had to be involved in a district 7 music educators business meeting [which was] basically to discuss different policies and procedures with regard to what we do with the auditions at the festival. Sometimes there were workshops…given [to us] by [various] music stores and clinicians.”

  The students involved with districts must engage in long rehearsals on the two days that the festival is held because there are no prior practices as a group. On Friday, there was a 12-hour rehearsal, and on Saturday, there was an 8 hour one in order to prepare for their performance later in the day on Saturday.

  According to junior Julien Sherman, who also advanced to regionals, these rehearsals and the festival itself have helped to improve his playing ability.

  “In order to make it to districts, I had to practice a lot more than I usually do on percussion instruments- I don’t usually play a whole lot,” Sherman said. “For percussion, the auditions consisted of etudes for the snare drum, xylophone, timpani, crash cymbals, tambourine, and triangle. Having practiced those instruments a lot more, I now have experience in playing them. Also, the music for the festival is very challenging, so just keeping up with playing and counting at really fast tempos is quite the experience.”

  Although districts is over, those advancing to regionals have just over a month to prepare themselves for the upcoming festival. Senior Amy Whitesell is excited for the upcoming competition, even with the short amount of practice time.

  “I’m expecting a wider variety of people with a better skill level [at regionals],” Whitesell said. “It’s definitely going to be harder to advance to States for anyone at Regionals. I’m expecting a fantastic conductor as well. The conductor for Districts was so nice and positive and really tried to help us push through the long hours, and I’m looking forward to working with someone like that again.”

  Regionals will take place on February 25 and 26, 2016 at Bucknell University.