Schools
Student Musicians Break Guinness World Record
Orchestra students from throughout Hillsborough County gathered May 11.

Hillsborough County Public Schools was notified Wednesday that the May 11 attempt to break the Guinness World Records for the largest string instruments ensemble was successful.
In fact, the group of student and teacher musicians from throughout the county smashed the previous record.
The record represents the greatest number of people playing the same tune on string instruments together at the same time at a single venue.
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The string ensemble included 858 district orchestra students and teachers who gathered at Williams Middle Magnet School for International Studies playing Pachelbel's Canon in D on the violin, viola, cello and bass.
Williams' music teacher Robert Halczyn worked with Guinness World Records to follow required instructions for establishing an official world record. Those included submitting clips from local or national news coverage, independent video and still photo evidence, and log books recording the event’s activities.
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School Board members, current and former district administrators, and local leaders served as "supervisors" to witness the event.
Guinness requires one witness for every 50 participants, and each supervisor must submit a statement indicating how many participants they observed and how many actively took part in the attempt.
The previous record was set April 10, 2010, at Spring Jam ‘10 in Kirkland, Wash., with 392 string players gathered at Juanita High School.
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