Wootton orchestra to set the bar for music teachers

Chamber orchestra heads to Chicago conference that helps music teachers hone their skills

Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette Carolyn Herman, Thomas S. Wootton High School music instructor, rehearses the 27-member Honors Chamber Orchestra she will conduct in an hour-long concert at the prestigious Midwest Clinic on Dec. 21. The orchestra is the first in 33 years to be invited from the state of Maryland to the annual Chicago conference attended by 12,000 music instructors from across the United States and 30 other countries. Click here to enlarge this photo Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette Deborah Yeh, 16, of North Potomac rehearses with other orchestra members.

The 27 young musicians will perform at the Midwest Clinic, an annual conference that runs from Dec. 13-23 and draws 12,000 music teachers from all 50 states and 30 different countries. Now celebrating its 60th anniversary, the conference brings together the best middle, high school and college orchestras and bands, as well as community and military bands, for performances and clinics to help music teachers hone their skills.

‘‘This is an incredible honor for us, to be invited to perform at a conference that sets the standard for school orchestras,” said Carolyn Herman, Wootton’s music instructor. ‘‘The music we’ll perform is some of the new literature published over the past year, so educators know how it’s supposed to be performed.”

The orchestra is the first ever invited from a Montgomery County public school and the only one invited from a Maryland public school in the last 33 years.

‘‘There’s pressure involved, definitely,” said Herman, 37, of Gaithersburg. ‘‘Normally you perform before a gentle audience of moms and dads and grandparents, not music educators critiquing you in their minds.”

Aside from rehearsing since September for the hour-long concert that ranges from modern works to pieces by classical composers like Tchaikovsky, the young musicians also devised a plan to help keep their cool.

‘‘You just don’t look at the audience, they’re so picky,” said cellist Jeffrey Coon, 17, of Gaithersburg. ‘‘You focus on the orchestra and not the people listening to it. It makes it all feel more normal.”

The concert will be recorded and made available online so that music teachers across the country and internationally may listen to it before introducing the material to their own students.

The orchestra will also demonstrate methods for developing better rhythm skills in a clinic taught by University of Oregon violin professor Fritz Gearhart.

The teens said the fact their Chicago performance will influence how music is taught to other young musicians is a daunting prospect.

‘‘We’re all excited because this is the most important thing we’ve ever done as a group,” said Catherine Liow, 17, of Gaithersburg. ‘‘We tried out about 20 different pieces before [Herman] decided on the 10 songs we’ll play. She’s telling us to practice more, and we’re even having after-school rehearsals.”

Because the students have played together under Herman’s direction for three years, they feel confident their efforts will pay off.

‘‘[Herman] is easy-going and fun, but she knows how to get hard work out of us, too,” Liow said.

Herman said the idea of applying for a spot at the conference came to her in March, shortly after the chamber orchestra played at a state conference.

She quickly compiled the application package comprising a professional recording of the group, programs from past performances, recommendations from professional musicians that have played with the orchestra, a photo and video.

‘‘It was a miracle that we got it all pulled together in two weeks to meet the deadline, and a miracle that we got selected,” Herman said.

She recruited her husband Scott Herman, who teaches music at Cabin John Middle School, to serve as a guest conductor for the Chicago performance. He taught many of the orchestra students when they attended his middle school and knows others from his work with the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras. Charles ‘‘Bud” Caputo, a retired Montgomery County Public Schools instrumental music coordinator, will also travel with the group to guest conduct his own arrangement of ‘‘Spain” by Chick Corea.

Not that the Chicago convention means all work and no play for the teens. The trip agenda includes sightseeing of Chicago landmarks and catching a performance of the musical ‘‘Wicked.”

‘‘We’re all good friends and we’ve never been on a trip together before, so this is going to be great,” Liow said. ‘‘Plus, we get to miss school so everyone’s excited about that.”

Herman said she has heard very few complaints about the increase in rehearsals as the trip departure nears.

‘‘The only thing the kids whine about is having to wear ‘concert black,’ the tuxes and formal outfits they wear on stage,” she said. ‘‘But that’s only natural for high school kids. And they look so great all dressed up.”