For winter and spring concerts at my schools, we have a combined orchestra, band, and choir concert that ideally lasts about an hour. The orchestra portion tends to run about 25 minutes total, so a few pieces performed by the first-year orchestra, a few pieces by the second-year orchestra, and then one or two combined pieces rounds out the orchestra portion. I meet with my students once a week for 30 minutes during recess for full orchestra and 30 minutes once a week during the school day for small group learning, so these pieces are representative of what students can comfortably have concert-ready.
Here is what my students performed last year at these concerts:
Winter Concert
Beginners:
- Bile 'em Cabbage Down (students plucked an open string harmony part while I played the melody on the violin)
- Slavonic Folk Song (pizz. open string harmony, then pizz. melody, then arco melody/harmony together)
- Serenata by Dale Brubaker (all open strings, arco)
2nd Year Students:
- Skaters' Waltz by Émile Waldteufel, arr. Richard Meyer (in preparation for the next month's district-wide String Fest)
- Sword Dance by Thoinot Arbeau, arr. Bob Phillips
Combined Orchestras:
- Blueberry Jam by Bonnie Greene (in preparation for the next month's district-wide String Fest)
- Jingle Bells by James Pierpont (my arrangement)
Spring Concert
Beginners:
- Ode to Joy (my arrangement)
- It's the Blues Man! (from their Orchestra Expressions book, complete with student soloists improvising the rhythms during their 4-measure solo)
- Student compositions (one four-measure composition per instrument)
- Royal Promenade by Don Brubaker (their first "real" full orchestra piece with independent parts)
2nd Year Students:
- Spring by Antonio Vivaldi, arr. Richard Meyer
- Student compositions (two eight-measure compositions--one for upper strings and one for lower strings)
- Fiddles on Fire by Mark Williams
Combined Orchestras:
- The Lion Sleeps Tonight (arr. Bob Cerulli)
This general format has been working well--in December, I like to start with something that's pizzicato open strings to show where the beginners started at the beginning of the year (and because students would be really comfortable performing that) and work up to something that's arco with D string notes. And the 2nd year students tend to play fewer pieces (about two big pieces alone) because theirs are longer in length. If we do only one combined piece at the end, 2nd year students may play three pieces alone; if we do two combined pieces, 2nd year students generally play two pieces alone.
Here are some of the pieces my students have performed for past winter and spring concerts listed in no particular order (student compositions are on every concert too):
Winter Concert
Beginners:
Pizzicato open strings (one piece)
Pizzicato open strings/pizzicato D string notes/arco open string harmony plus D string melody (one piece played three times)...Or play one of these pieces pizzicato only (open string harmony/D string notes melody/choose melody or harmony third time) and play a second piece with the melody arco only
Arco open strings (one piece)
Second Year Students:
A round or something pretty simple (one or two pieces--some years I don't do one of these on the concerts and choose two full orchestra pieces instead)
Full orchestra piece (one or two pieces--often one will be performed for String Fest the following month and the other one will not)
Combined Pieces:
We always end with Jingle Bells! If we do a second combined piece on this concert, it would be a String Fest piece
- Star of the County Down (melody for 2nd year students; harmony for beginners)
- Variations on a Sea Shanty (my arrangement)
- Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi (my arrangement that I got permission from the copyright holder to write--sorry, can't share)
- Jingle Bells (my arrangement)
Spring Concert
Beginners:
Very simple full orchestra piece or a piece from the book
Piece from book with student soloists improvising their own rhythms (they play a 4-measure solo, deciding which quarter notes to change to pairs of eighth notes). We play a total of four times--first and last times with everyone playing the melody, the second and third times with soloists to include 6 soloists total.
"Real" full orchestra piece
Second Year Orchestra:
Two or three full orchestra pieces, possibly one brought back from January's String Fest
Or something a little different
Combined Orchestras:
Concert info to share with families (Google Docs):
Please see
this post for a Google Sheet of repertoire options organized by unit/concert.
For a more in-depth look at my winter concerts including logistics and sample speaking parts, please see
this post :)
Which pieces do you like to program for a beginning orchestra concert? Which pieces should I consider for future concerts?
