Written by Jacob Flores, Staff Writer
The Poly Orchestra shows their hard work and talent at the latest pre-festival concert.
On Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026, the poly orchestra presented their pre-festival performance to showcase their festival repertoire for the spring season. Being a combined concert with the Gage Middle School strings orchestra, Poly brought to the crowd a spectacular performance that truly set the tone for talent. Starting off the night with the 7th grade Gage ensemble, they performed “Gaelic Castle”, an almost fantasy and mid-evil themed song. Their second piece was “Appalachian Hymn”, a back and forth sectional performance that focused on rhythm and dynamics, and their last piece was “Dark Currents”, an impressive performance that built up tension and thrill to the main chorus.
Moving onto the 8th grade string orchestra, their first performance, “Hey Fiddle Fiddle!”, was an upbeat cheerful song that brought clap stomping, hollering, and laughter throughout the audience. “A Silent Promise”, the second performance for 8th grade, was the standout performance as it had an almost cinematic and moving meaning behind the music. Finally, “Force Of Nature closed” off the 8th grade orchestra’s set, with an upbeat and surprising arrangement that left audience members impressed, setting the tone for the next performance.
The Poly orchestra opened their set with “Themes from Scheherazade”, a beautiful and moving piece that explained the complicated romance story of love. Nadia Thrush (9) enjoyed her solo as “the way it sounded with the rest of the orchestra made it a really good song”. The second piece “Variations On a Restless Theme”, is a dramatic arrangement by former Poly High School student, Maxim Strong. Finally, “Jupiter-Bringer Of Jollity”, closed off the night with a beautiful harmonic melody and left the audience satisfied and in amazement. Kien Biggs (12) explained that he enjoyed the first piece that they performed the most; “it was our strongest [song] and I think the soloist did really well. Overall I enjoyed the performance.” Arline Ream’s (10), associate principal cello, favorite piece was their first repertoire “because the solo was really good, and [they] thought the cellos stuck out.” When also asked about the festival on Thursday, March 5th, both Biggs and Ream felt that despite its challenges it was overall a very successful demonstration of the whole ensemble’s abilities.
This being Orchestra’s third concert of the 2025 – 2026 school year, it stuck out with each piece having its harmonic take and vast improvement from every ensemble. The concert was an overall success, and would not have been possible without the amazing coordination of both Mr. Kalnin and Mr.Guzman and the boosters who helped fund the opportunities. If you are at all interested in music or learning about classical music and strings, I highly recommend checking out the next orchestra concert for yourself as they do not disappoint. Until next time, one question remains: what does the orchestra have in store next?