Touring Orchestra Heads to London

6/10/2016

This weekend the Dwight-Englewood Touring Orchestra plus one D-E singer will depart for London, England on a performance tour. They will join forces with choral and orchestral students from St. Dominic's Sixth Form College (students equivalent in age to our 11th and 12th grade students) for a benefit concert sponsored by St. Dominic's to raise funds for St Luke’s Hospice in Harrow, and MacMillan nurses, both important cancer charities. The collaborative ensembles will perform a portion of Vivaldi's Gloria, Copland's Hoe Down, St. Saen's Cello Concerto featuring student cellist Gregory Llewellyn and a variety of works from the more "pop" oriented genre adapted for chorus and orchestra.

Conductor, D-E Arts Chair and trip director John Littlefield shares the following trip highlights: "Upon arrival in London, the students will visit Hampton Court (palatial residence of royals Henry VIII, & George II as well as having been owned by Oliver Cromwell and others) before proceeding to St. Dominic's for rehearsal and a light dinner with their students, supplied by St. Dominic's. In the days that follow, our students will spend a day in classes viewing the English academic experience, performing an outreach concert at St. Augustine's College (a school that our orchestra performed for in 2011) and also present a concert open to the public at St. John's Church in Hyde Park. During their stay they student will enjoy high tea at Fortnum & Mason, visit Stonehenge on the way to the seeing the ancient Roman Baths in Bath and have an opportunity to visit Westminster Abbey. After a fully packed five days on the ground, our students will return to the "States" with memories to last a lifetime."

This year’s D-E Touring Orchestra is comprised of 21 members from the 55 member Dwight-Englewood Upper School Orchestra. This is the third trip in which an assembled student based Touring Orchestra has represented the school outside of the United States over the past six years. The first tour was to London in 2011 and the second was to Prague, Vienna and Budapest in 2013. In the intervening years their smaller chamber string orchestra, StringJam, has travelled to perform extensively on the East Coast of the United States including two performances in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall in New York City, at prestigious New England boarding schools Andover Academy and St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, at Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts and also performances in Washington, D.C., one of which had former President George H. W. Bush, his wife Barbara and James Baker, former White House Chief of Staff in attendance.

The D-E Touring Orchestra includes the following D-E students and faculty/staff members:
Violin: Lawrence Chiang, Madeleine Kachikian, Christine Kim, Elena Latinsky-Ortiz, Megan Lobo, Michael Montenegro, Grace Rosenberg, Isabella Pizzillo, Wen Plotnick

Viola: Jason Finn, Maxine Musto, Margaret Sheridan

Cello: Gregory Llewellyn, James Patterson

Flute: Susie Lee, Jifang Lu, Angela Zhang

French Horn: Eli Kline

Trumpet: Robert Chen, Michael Pizzillo

Voice: Ava Chiocco

Annaliesa Place, Director of Strings

Rebecca Steinberg, trumpet

Diego Garcia, conductor/composer

John Littlefield, conductor/flute

Back

News Detail

Touring Orchestra Heads to London