After a long day of school, junior Nitsan Schwarz heads to her symphonic orchestra rehearsal. While her peers take a seat and reach for their instruments, Schwarz heads to the front of the class to lead the musicians along with juniors Jessica Jackman and Arianne Torio.

However, rehearsals were not always student-run. It started last year a few weeks into the beginning of the program, due to Music Director Jonathan Erdman’s busy schedule, as well as the need for extra rehearsals. Erdman had allowed then seniors Angelo Salinda and Chloe Mabanta to run practices outside of school for the Jurassic Park piece played in the 2014 Pops Concert.

Erdman also began the symphonic orchestra last year because he believed it would give students an opportunity to play a larger variety of pieces and a “different venue of repertoire.”

This year, Erdman is allowing students to organize and run the symphonic orchestra. The current student leaders are juniors Torio, Schwarz and Jackman.

“They get the music, study it and run it,” Erdman said. “I supervise and put it together when the concert comes near.”

Student leaders don’t have many obstacles when running the program, according to Schwarz.

“Running the symphonic orchestra is mainly about listening to the whole band and linking it to the individual parts that you see in the score, and helping the orchestra from there,” Schwarz said.

With the three instrumental classes at SCHS, symphonic band, jazz band and orchestra, finding students to join the out of class program was not difficult, according to Torio. Just this past winter concert, 80 students participated.

A standard symphonic orchestra consists of four sections: woodwinds, brass, percussion and strings. SCHS’s symphonic orchestra, however, is a combination of the instruments in symphonic band, jazz band and orchestra, according to Schwarz.  

“Symphonic band focuses on classical pieces, while jazz band includes jazz charts (chord charts that include a song’s harmony and rhythm), and improvisation solos. Orchestra has the different instruments like violins, cellos and bass,” explains Schwarz.

With the various musical aspects to the program, the student leaders must be heavily prepared for their position according to Erdman. “They take home the music, study it, and teach it. I oversee some aspects of the process, but 90% is student oriented.” 

Despite the challenge, student leaders enjoy the task as it allows them to get to know the students like a teacher would. “Leading gives me the chance to know each musician individually, and it’s truly an honor getting to know each talented person on a personal level,” explained Schwarz.

CORRECTION:  The SCHS symphonic orchestra played the Jurassic Park piece at its 2014 Pops concert.  This was misstated in an earlier version of this story, and has been corrected in this version.