Nationally-Recognized Orchestra to Bring Sounds of the Season to Some of New Jersey's Youngest Hearing Impaired Children

The nationally-recognized Highland Park High School Orchestra will visit Summit Speech School in New Providence, NJ at 10:00 am on Friday, December 19 to perform for the deaf and hard of hearing preschoolers in attendance there. The orchestra, led by its Director Ms. Hsin-Ting Feng, will play musical selections for the children, demonstrate some of their instruments, and let the children try out the instruments.

“We’re very excited about the orchestra playing for our little ones,” said Amy Ryan, Preschool Principal at Summit Speech School. “We know that music helps build auditory and listening skills, and our children will have lots of fun interacting with the high school kids.”

Highland Park High School Orchestra is marking its 10th anniversary this year. To celebrate that milestone they are reaching out to the community, performing at schools and a children’s hospital and raising funds for an international relief agency. In 2012 the ensemble won Gold at the WorldStrides Heritage competition, which enabled them to participate in the Festival of Gold and perform at Carnegie Hall. The group has also been invited to compete for the Orchestra Cup at the National School Orchestra Championships in March 2015 at Lincoln Center in New York City, where they will perform an original work “Fantasy for Strings” composed by Ben Newhouse. Visit http://204.8.193.135/users/hfeng for more information. 

Summit Speech School was founded in 1967 to teach deaf and hard of hearing children to listen and talk. The School works with children and their families, from infancy through high school, building on the student’s own hearing ability supplemented with modern technology such as hearing aids and cochlear implants. The School currently serves about 225 children from communities throughout northern and central New Jersey, and in 2013 opened a satellite preschool class in Burlington County. For more information on the school, visit: www.summitspeech.org