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Last Updated: Nov 14, 2008 - 12:49:26 PM |
When you see high school students in a wind symphony, you’re much more likely to imagine their parents in the audience, not up on the stage with them.
But that’s exactly the case with the Chester Wind Symphony, a 50-member group that’s attracted a nearly equal mix of students and adults. One of the scheduled bands to perform at the seventh annual ChesterFest on September 13, the Chester Wind Symphony also has a musical repertoire that’s sure to entertain listeners young and old.
“We do quite a wide variety of music,” says Jon Schoepflin, one of the founders of the symphony and future band director at Elizabeth Davis Middle School. “At ChesterFest, we’ll be playing some old pieces and several new ones, too. We’re doing ‘Thriller,’ and anything from that to ‘Amazing Grace’ and points in between. We’ll have a piece called ‘Disney Razzmatazz,’ which combines a couple of songs like ‘A Friend Like You’ from Aladdin, but we’ll also have things that are the complete opposite, like Tchaikovsky.” Other pieces the band has played include the full arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition and various themes from the Pirates of the Caribbean series.
The symphony was established in 2006 by Schoepflin and trombonist Kevin DeChaine. At the time, the group included about 20 members, mostly high school students and their parents; but word of mouth soon spread and the symphony expanded accordingly. “There are about 50 members now, with a few less during summer vacation,” Schoepflin says. “It’s very family-oriented. We have a few father-daughter teams, some husbands and wives, and a lot of siblings.”
The split between student and adult musicians is nearly equal, Schoepflin says. “It’s about 40 percent student, 60 percent adult,” he estimates. “It changes from year to year because students will graduate. Some go to a local college and continue to play with us; others go outside of the area.” Others, however, come back to the group after a long absence from music: “One alto sax player hadn’t played her instrument for 48 years before she joined!”
Schoepflin and the symphony strive for three performances a year. “We have a spring concert, with original and new music, a holiday concert, and now ChesterFest,” he says. “We don’t want to do the same music every year. It’s more of an educational opportunity for our members to learn new music and improve as a musician.”
This will be the first year that the Chester Wind Symphony will be performing at ChesterFest, but it’s not a new goal. “We’ve been wanting to do it for a while, but we had to wait until our skill level was up enough to do it,” says Schoepflin. “We’re really excited that we’ll be able to play at ChesterFest for the first time.”
The symphony will take to the ChesterFest stage at 2 p.m. on September 13.
Those interested in joining the Chester Wind Symphony or finding out more about the group can visit chesterwinds.org; meetings take place Mondays at 7 p.m. at the newly opened Elizabeth Davis Middle School.
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