AWARD WINNING WEST SALEM HIGH SCHOOL Orch - Boston day 3

Oh my goodness! Can you all feel the excitement from there? We swept the awards at the festival - we won 4 big tall gold awards and received 2 lovely plaques for participating in the festival - the kids are 'high as kites'!

Ok, I should back up. This morning, the Advanced Orchestra Ensemble (11 of us from Advanced Orchestra) rehearsed at 7am (yes, on 5-6 hours of sleep) to prepare for the festival. Then we rehearsed on stage at Salem High School (their mascot is the "Witches") and performed. The adjudicators were so complimentary and encouraging! We really did well - even if we did only play to the first repeat of Death and the Maiden (Schubert).

Then, the "West Salem High School Combined Advanced Orchestra" performed. It was magical. Maybe it was the BSO last night - maybe it was inspiration from the incredible clinic from David Hoose - whatever it was, we played really really well!

After all that, we hung out with Salem (MA) High School students, then went to the Salem Witch Museum. We spent the afternoon hanging out - some went to Fenway, some went to the Prudential shopping center (only about a million stores in this mall!!!), some stayed in Salem to take a cool picture of the "Salem High School - Home of the Witches" sign.

In the evening, Heritage Festivals puts on a huge evening event. All the schools (I'm guessing there were 700+ students here - mainly choruses and bands, just a few orchestras) gather for dinner, awards ceremony, and a dance. Currently, as I type this, many of our crowd are dancing their feet away. The awards were amazing. Of course we received 2 plaques for participating - but, the honors were that we received two huge trophies as being selected as exemplary groups by the adjudicators. Our scores were amazing - all over 90 (out of 100).

We took a picture of the trophies and plaques with all the kids and sent it to Mr. John - he was rather proud of us.

Tomorrow we're off to the Harbor, then to Logan (the airport). What an amazing few days - musical, historical, successful - and, all thanks to the hard work of some wonderful kids and parents!!!!
~Ms. S